BERRIEN SPRINGS — People got the chance to learn more about a possible merger between the county’s two main ambulance services at a community meeting Thursday in Berrien Springs.

      Thursday’s meeting at the Berrien Springs-Oronoko Township Public Safety Building was the second of its kind on the topic. The first of the community meetings was held in late February at the Berrien County Health Department building in Benton Harbor.

      The proposed merger would bring Medic 1 and the Southwestern Michigan Community Ambulance Service together in one service. Medic 1 serves much of central and northern Berrien County as well as the New Buffalo area. SMCAS is based in the Niles area and serves southeastern Berrien County as well as much of Cass County.

Both entities date back to the 1970s and were at the forefront of emergency medical services at the time, bringing advanced life support services to the area. The merger would have to be approved by all the municipal owners of the two services before becoming a reality, with the new entity called Southwest Michigan Mobile Health Care.

SMCAS Executive Director Brian Scribner and Medic 1 Executive Director Jason Wiley outlined the reasons why they’re considering the merger and what the next steps are. They’re hoping to hire a consultant in coming months to study the feasibility of making such a move.

Scribner said the problems Medic 1 and SMCAS are facing aren’t unique to the two services but are being felt by services around the state and around the country. Problems he mentioned included staffing shortages, recruitment and retention and funding issues.

He said the current operating model with people working 24 hour shifts is not conducive to employee health. He noted that the current system is outdated, not only in the hours paramedics work but also in sending advanced life support (ALS) paramedics to all calls even when they’re not needed.

“It’s a matter of letting go of an outdated mindset,” he said. “Now we send 100 percent ALS paramedics when they’re only needed 20 percent of the time. Overall, only three to six percent of responses require a critical intervention … We have coverage all day and we’re either overstaffed or don’t have enough staff.

He and Wiley described the proposed new operating model merging the two services as one using “dynamic staffing” that would give better coverage with less staff. Wiley noted that merging would allow them to expand their coverage area and more resources, opportunities and capabilities.

Wiley said that there’s a shortage of 2,000 paramedics in Michigan and both Medic 1 and SMCAS have felt that shortage. “This would bring a more efficient use of resources and help us implement best practices and deploy people when and where they’re needed,” he said. “We would have paramedics in s.u.v. mobile units around the county to respond.”

He spoke of “myths” and “half truths” they wanted to dispel. He said the services are not looking to take over the other and will not be downgrading what they offer. “One myth is that we are downgrading our services and that’s not true, there will actually be a significant upgrade,” he said.

He argued that having fewer paramedics would actually result in better care. He said that paramedics now have less opportunities to use and hone their skills when they’re sitting around most of the day and not out on calls.

Another aspect of the new model is being able to bring health care to people in the community. “We can partner with Corewell to check on patients who have been released from the hospital and save the hospital from the financial penalties that come when people are re-admitted within 30 days of release.”

Wiley said after the meeting that there are no plans to close down the SMCAS base outside of Niles or other “substations” in rural parts of Berrien and Cass Counties. He said in fact that they hope to add a substation in the Berrien Springs area to better serve the central county.

When asked about how the decision is made to sent a basic or advanced life support crew to a call, he said that 9-1-1 dispatch analyzes the situation when a call comes in. The dispatcher determines if it is a medical issue and then follows a protocol to determine whether a basic or advanced life support response is needed.

“We’re not really changing what we’ve promised to provide,” Wiley emphasized. “We will provide advanced life support when it’s needed and we will be more efficient in what we do.”

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