Members from Orange County Emergency Services updated local officials Tuesday about the work they are doing to keep Orange County residents safe at an Assembly of Governments meeting in Hillsborough.
Kim Woodward, Orange County's EMS operations manager, and Dinah Jeffries, the county's EMS director, spoke about turnaround times at the UNC Hospitals Hillsborough campus and the EMS’s new partnership with the fire department.
Woodward said Hillsborough has the second highest volume of EMS calls in Orange County, and the UNC Hillsborough hospital has allowed EMS to more effectively transport patients.
“The opening of UNC Hillsborough allowed many of the Northern Orange County patients who would have otherwise been transported to Duke or UNC main campus — they can now go to a closer location where our ambulances can turn around faster," she said.
She also said EMS has partnered with various fire stations across Orange County to establish co-locations that allow ambulances to be stored indoors when they are not in use.
There are currently six co-locations, with four of them open 24 hours a day and two of them open 12 hours a day.
Woodward said these co-locations have helped both the fire departments and EMS by improving professional relations between the two organizations. It has also allowed for safer storage of equipment and medication, she said.
The co-locations have made ambulance storage safer for the equipment and medications, she said, because they are no longer stored outside and can be stored in a temperature-controlled environment.
Despite their successes, she said the co-locations have not been without their challenges.
