New service should be good

Having spent several hours the other day going over details of the new ambulance service for Elmore County, we left feeling confident that the citizens of this county are going to get improved ambulance care.

It's not that NPA was bad, but simply that Elmore County wasn't its primary focus.

Because all of the service will now be locally coordinated (and there seems to be a genuine desire to coordinate with all the various QRU units in the area), and training and equipment standardized, the technical aspects of the ambulance service should be improved.

Plus, they seem to have hired a bunch of very qualified people to run the service.

Perhaps equally important is the transparency the new service will provide. In the past, it was often difficult to "look inside" NPA's operations and decision-making. But since both the county, which is funding the service, and the hospital, which is running it, are government agencies, it should be easier to monitor the service. And both groups are planning on presenting regular reports to the public, which should improve the public's knowledge of what is going on, as well as giving the public improved opportunities for input.

Overall, both at a technical level, and an infrastructure level, it looks like there's a good chance we're going to get a better level of care for the money being spent, and that's a good thing for all of us.

-- Kelly Everitt