The Cook County Ambulance crew is busy. Ambulance Director Steve DuChien rattled off some interesting statistics on the service to the North Shore Hospital and Care Center board on September 26.
“The ambulance service has been serving the county for over 50 years,” DuChien told the board. Its beginnings were humble, he said, providing basic life support for many years. In the last 18 months two paramedics on staff have enabled the service to provide advanced life support, which allows patients to receive more advanced care as they are heading to the local hospital or to a critical care hospital outside the county. “I think it’s a great program,” he said. “I think it’s a great benefit to the community.” About 28 percent of the crew’s calls require advanced life support care.
Cook County Ambulance Service has 15 volunteers and five people on staff including DuChien, the two paramedics— Jeff Denniston and Sheila Costello —and two other EMTs—Rebecca Sturm and Mike Flack. They are on hospital grounds most of the time, helping out with hospital patients and assisting various departments while being ready to run out the door when needed.
Cook County Ambulance Service made 411 runs last year, with 123 of them involving transfers out of the county. Its three ambulances travelled a total of 29,053 miles in 2011, using up 3,361 gallons of gas. Ambulance No. 35 has 32,000 miles on it, No. 34 has 101,000 miles on it, and No. 36 has 208,900 miles on it and will soon be getting a new chassis.
DuChien said that people who have called for an ambulance sometimes say to the crew that shows up, “What took you so long?” The average time it takes from being paged to being in the ambulance on the way to the scene is 3.18 minutes, and the average time it takes to get onto the scene is 15.2 minutes. That varies, however, depending on how far the crew has to go. It’s a big, 2,200-square-mile territory that does not include Grand Portage and a portion of the Gunflint Trail but does include a portion of the BWCAW.
The crew’s busiest time is noon to 3:00 p.m. Saturday, followed by 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Sunday.
About 70 percent of the calls are for Grand Marais, about 16 percent are for Lutsen Township and Lutsen Mountains Ski Area, just under 9 percent are for Tofte, Schroeder, and Taconite Harbor, and 3 percent are for Hovland.
About 35 percent of the calls are quick, DuChien said. Twenty-two percent of them, however, end up going to Duluth, which takes the crew about six hours. The Silver Bay ambulance service comes up as far as Mile Marker 76 and brings patients either to North Shore Hospital or to a hospital in Lake or St. Louis County.
DuChien said the average age of their ambulance patients is 59, and the majority of them are male. The average age of the ambulance crew is 45.
The ambulance service participates in several regional and state programs and boards. The crew provides public services, with staff presence at high school football games, the annual bike rodeo, Fisherman’s Picnic, and the Dragon Boat Festival.
DuChien has been with the ambulance service since 1986, starting out as a volunteer EMT and becoming its director this last January.
“I want to say thank you for your presence in the community,” said board member Kay Olson.
DuChien said when they get a call in the middle of the night, they jump out of bed and go – no teeth brushing or hair combing. “I’ve never had a patient complain,” he said. “I’ve had them laugh a couple of times!”
In other hospital news:
Hospital Administrator Kimber Wraalstad will start attending a portion of the Sawtooth Mountain Clinic board meetings, and Clinic Director Rita Plourde will be attending a portion of the hospital board meetings.
The hospital has finalized its purchase of the Masonic Lodge building. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources decided to temporarily rent office space at Cook County Schools after considering the Masonic Lodge building. Wraalstad said one factor in the decision was the lack of phone line to the building.
Hospital income is up this year. At the end of August 2011, the year-to-date excess revenue was $154,204. This year, it is $1,126,259, although the typically slower months are still ahead. Swing bed use is up a lot from last year, and reducing the number of bed in the care center helped decrease costs. Other departments doing well so far this year are physical therapy, pharmacy, and radiology. The emergency room had 321 visits in August.
Administrator Wraalstad is meeting with DSGW Architects to discuss the master plan, which includes updating the configuration of the hospital to better meet current needs and provide flexibility for future needs. She told the board they will need to decide what they want to do about the care center, which never breaks even, as they develop the master plan. Board Chair Howard Abrahamson said bond rates are really good right now, so this might be a good time to make changes to the building.
The hospital is adopting a collections policy in accordance with state requirements. Hospital Controller Yvonne Gennrich said the hospital tries to work with families with accounts in arrears and help them find financial assistance they might qualify for. Lots of times the families don’t respond to their attempts to contact them, she said.
The old employee time card system is being replaced with a computer-based system. Administrator Wraalstad said of the old time cards with which employees punched in and out, “I haven’t used that kind of system since I was in high school.”
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