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County approves draft RFP for exclusive emergency ambulance service; providers and chiefs ask language tweaks on hospital offload
Summary
Supervisors approved a draft, state-bound RFP for a 10-year exclusive emergency ambulance contract with response and clinical performance measures; the draft includes a placeholder annual contract fee to be finalized with the FY25-26 budget and prompted provider comments about ambulance patient offload time language.
Contra Costa County staff presented a draft request-for-proposals Feb. 4 for an exclusive emergency ambulance-service contract designed to run up to 10 years. The RFP implements recommendations from a recent EMS-system evaluation, sets response-time and clinical-performance targets and proposes contract oversight measures.
The draft RFP underwent a four-week public comment period that produced 94 comments and roughly 62 revisions, staff said. To ensure the county can sustain oversight, staff requested board approval in concept and authority to submit the document to the California Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA), using a to-be-determined annual contract fee based on the FY25-26 budget as the baseline.
Chiefs and the incumbent provider urged careful treatment of ambulance patient offload time (APOT) language. "APOT is a complex statewide issue," Chief Brochard said, urging that responsibility to resolve offload delays rest with the local EMS agency and hospitals rather than be framed as a provider responsibility.
Staff said the RFP retains response-time requirements consistent with county policy but offers more sophisticated, incentive-aligned compliance that links clinical performance with response metrics. The board approved the draft RFP and its submission to state EMS for review; the motion included direction that the annual administrative/contract fee be finalized once the FY25-26 budget is adopted.
Next steps: staff will submit the RFP to state EMSA, finalize the contract-fee methodology with FY25-26 budget figures, and return to the board with any state feedback and final contract language. The board asked staff to refine APOT-related language to ensure the provider—ngages with hospitals and the LEMSA without being held solely responsible for hospital offload delays.
