This morning I approved American Medical Response’s (AMR Maricopa) application to operate ambulances in Maricopa County (called a Certificate of Necessity or CON). I approved the Certificate of Necessity after reviewing a host of evidence presented to an Administrative Law Judge and her Order recommending approval. The official notice will be posted on the Office of Administrative Hearing website this week.
In order to operate an ambulance service in Arizona an applicant needs to demonstrate that: 1) there’s a “public necessity” for their services; 2) they have the finances and operational skills necessary to operate the service; and 3) they can provide high quality clinical care and evaluate their service with a performance improvement plan.
Our Agency will be requiring AMR to comply with the statutes and ground ambulance rules. In addition, we’ll be requiring AMR to:
- Negotiate with cities and towns to improve response times;
- Work with hospitals to meet bedside arrival time requirements for inter-facility transports;
- Have a robust, on-going benchmarking and performance improvement process that encompasses all components of the EMS system from emergency medical dispatch through emergency department arrival;
- Collect and submit electronic patient care reports consistent with our EMS Bureau’s guidelines;
- Adopt clinical guidelines and operating procedures for time sensitive illness and injury; and
- Initiate guideline-based pre-arrival instructions for all callers accessing 9-1-1 for assistance.
The CON requires AMR to emphasize communication and coordination with Arizona communities and hospitals and requires AMR to undergo accreditation with a national accreditation organization.
