Article published Jan 9, 2008
Baxter Regional Medical Center adding ambulance locators
ARMANDO RIOS
Bulletin Staff Writer

Baxter Regional Medical Center ambulances are getting new equipment with vehicle locators being installed Tuesday.

Employees from USAT were placing the locators on nine ambulances, Gerald Cantrell, BRMC ambulance director said. He said the system should be operational sometime this week.

"We will have AVLs (automatic vehicle locators) on all our paramedic trucks," Cantrell said. "Next, we will be working toward testing and activating them now with our CAD (computer assisted dispatching) system we purchased. It has a vehicle locator system component, which will allow us to have real-time updates each minute on the vehicles' positions."

Johnny Holt of USAT holds a GPS locator unit Tuesday. Baxter Regional Medical Center is installing locator units in each of its nine ambulances, which should help reduce response time.

The hospital bought a data plan through AllTel which will use a cell phone to transmit the signal, he said.

"We are putting all paramedic units online to identify the vehicle positions throughout each shift to improve our response times, which is our ultimate goal," Cantrell said.

Baxter County Office of Emergency Management Director Tom Fischer said he's still waiting to hear if the county will receive a grant to purchase the necessary software and hardware so the 911 Office can track the ambulances.

Fischer applied for a grant through the Office of Domestic Preparedness in the Arkansas Department of Homeland Security.

"We are still waiting on them to make a decision on the grants," Fischer said. "They are in the process of reviewing them, but have not made a decision yet. The only thing we are waiting on is for them to make a decision."

Fischer estimated the software and hardware will cost $21,000.

"We hope that within the next two or three weeks they will make a decision," Fischer said. "It will allow us to get our portion to get operable with the hospital. It would be a really good system to track a lot of our resources."

In December, after Action Ambulance closed its doors, BRMC stated it would proceed with plans to place vehicle locators on its ambulance fleet.

Soon after Action EMS opened its doors in January 2005, the Baxter County 911 Center started rotating ambulance dispatch calls on an equal basis between the two services. Last October, the county decided to change from a rotation basis to sending the nearest ambulance to the scene and asked ambulance services to call in their locations until vehicle locators could be installed.

Action EMS changed its name to Action Ambulance after it merged with Southern Paramedic in July. Action closed its doors Dec. 7.

In December, the emergency medical services software for ambulance services was installed in the BRMC ambulance dispatch office.

With the system in place, it will make it easier for dispatchers to send the nearest ambulance, Cantrell said.

armandor@baxterbulletin.com

An antenna sits on the roof of a BRMC ambulance Tuesday.

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