Answering Calls for Help Across Oregon

Sep 24, 2024 | AOC Business Partner

Sponsored content contributed by AOC Business Partner: Metro West Ambulance

Emergency! Help, Call 911! We all hope to never need an ambulance for ourselves or loved ones. Let’s be frank, when it comes to ambulances, most of us just don’t want to think about it. Right up until one is needed at the worst moment in our lives. At Metro West Ambulance and our Family of Companies we are incredibly proud to be the trusted EMT’s and Paramedics multiple counties have chosen to answer calls for help in communities across Oregon 24 hours a day, every day.

As the largest provider of rural emergency medical services and ambulance transport in Oregon we provide access to sophisticated emergency care, as well as behind the scenes but we also provide critically important hospital to hospital transport, critical care transport, and wheelchair transportation. Metro West Ambulance may well be the provider in your community. Our Family of Companies has grown since its’ beginning 71 years ago in Washington County. Through the years we’ve welcomed Medix Ambulance, Clatsop County; Pacific West Ambulance, Lincoln County; Woodburn Ambulance, Marion County; Mid-Valley Ambulance, Lane County; Umpqua Valley Ambulance, Douglas; Bay Cities Ambulance, Coos County, and our newest addition,  Pioneer Ambulance, Baker County. All a part of our second generation Oregon family owned business.

Together these companies responded to over 100,000 calls for service last year alone. That is a tremendous contribution to the patients we serve and health care systems of Oregon. While many of these were emergencies that needed life-saving care immediately, many others were moves from one hospital to another for specialized care, or wheelchair transportation for a disabled US Veteran needing to get to an essential medical appointment. Our medics provide hospital at home services and one of our locations operates a non-emergency medical transportation brokerage. We partner with county health departments and others to provide vaccinations and other procedures.  Just a few examples of our range of services. Each essential for patients to get the care they need.

Accomplishing this is no easy task. Of course we need facilities and equipment. Most importantly we need highly trained, committed and compassionate employees. An experienced leadership team ties it all together.

Each ambulance is an approximately $300,000 emergency room on wheels including medical equipment and supplies such as self-loading stretchers to prevent back injuries, cardiac monitors, external pace makers, hospital ventilators, life-saving drugs,  and mechanical CPR devices just to name a few. Our three dispatch centers are all tied together and share IT infrastructure and data allowing us to coordinate activities and conduct quality assurance with data from every patient encounter system wide. We have clinical oversight from our Physician Medical Directors at each company who are assisted by training officers.

Each company, whether it is Bay Cities Ambulance in Coos County, Pioneer Ambulance in Baker County, or any of the others, operates independently with a local manager who has broad latitude to make decisions appropriate for their community. Metro West provides support for these local mangers in four key areas; patient billing, finance, information technology, and payroll/benefits coordination. Decisions about specialized equipment or medications to carry, staffing levels, and unique training needs for example are made locally. County Commissioners and the Ambulance Service Area Plans they regulate are the glue that holds these systems together.

Metro West and the whole Family of Companies are proud that as a family owned business we do all this without tax support. All of our hundreds of employees, whether they be EMT, Paramedic, Nurse, Dispatcher, or Administrative, wake up every day ready to answer the next call for help.

Contributed by: Shawn Baird, Metro West Ambulance