(News release)
The Rural/Metro Arizona family of companies, Rural/Metro Fire Department, Southwest Ambulance and PMT Ambulance, were recently designated as Premier EMS Agencies by the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS). Combined, these agencies serve more than 50 communities throughout the state of Arizona.
“Our crews and management work hard to not only meet, but exceed clinical excellence standards set by both the state and our own medical directors,” said Vice President John P. Karolzak. “We are proud that all of our agencies and team members have reached the Premier EMS Agency level.”
The ADHS Premier EMS Agency Program is a quality improvement initiative for Arizona’s EMS agencies that are dedicated to improving the care they provide to their patients. Premier agencies have implemented quality assurance measures in four key areas: major trauma; acute stroke; myocardial infarction with ST segment elevation, and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest
In addition to adopting the initiatives in patient care in these four key areas, Rural/Metro Fire Department, Southwest Ambulance and PMT Ambulance submit critical data to help ADHS and EMS providers throughout Arizona use best practices and improve patient care and outcomes.
Rural/Metro’s Arizona operations implemented Electronic Patient Care Reporting (ePCR) systems to easily submit patient data to the ADHS system. Likewise, Rural/Metro utilizes data submitted from other agencies to make quality improvement measures throughout their operations.
