Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
San Rafael commissioners hear early results of BLS ambulance pilot; staff say it’s freeing paramedic units
Loading...
Summary
The Fire Commission heard that a Basic Life Support (BLS) ambulance pilot based at Station 51 has reduced paramedic transports and could expand from weekday peak coverage to seven days, though staff said more months of data are needed to confirm impacts.
San Rafael’s Fire Commission on the meeting discussed an ongoing pilot program that placed a Basic Life Support ambulance into regular response rotation to handle lower-acuity medical transports and free paramedic units for higher-acuity calls. Agency officials said the pilot launched this winter and has been run initially during weekday peak hours and has recently added Fridays, with the goal of expanding to seven‑day coverage if call volumes continue.
Staff described Ambulance 51 as an ELS ambulance that now also includes two newly assigned EMTs and said the billing firm estimates roughly 20–30% of medical incidents result in transports. “We started the pilot program out…we had our fire captains basically making that decision,” an agency official stated, describing how dispatch and crew triage decide whether to send the BLS unit. The official said crews typically work about 20 hours a week and many are students progressing toward paramedic certification.
Commissioners pressed for operational details: staff said the ambulance is domiciled at Station 51 each shift, but crews ‘float’ across the city and can be dispatched systemwide. Early internal data and daily staff observations suggest the pilot has reduced the transport burden on medic units—examples cited include medic units making fewer transports when the BLS unit handled lower‑acuity calls—but department presenters said the dataset is small and they expect to need another two months to show effects with confidence.
Officials also described staffing and deployment options: the department began by having fire captains screen CAD data to assign the BLS unit and has moved toward dispatcher-led assignment. The pilot’s operational flexibility has included paramedic ride‑alongs or temporary conversion to ALS when conditions required it, and staff called the program a potential career pathway for EMTs seeking paramedic school.
The commission did not take formal action on the pilot at the meeting; staff were asked to continue collecting operational and billing data and to return with follow‑up information for commissioners to review.
