Improving Rural Response

     This month I had the opportunity to ride along with Greg Friese, who is part of a paramedic intercept program that started in January 2006 in Portage County, WI. The county-wide rural rapid response unit (RRU) is based in Plover and serves the entire county of about 60,000 residents. The RRU works closely with the Stevens Point Fire Department (which serves the largest community in Portage County) and 13 other smaller communities with volunteer first responders.

     The RRU call volume is fairly low, but shortly after I arrived we received a call for a woman who had fallen when a chair she was standing on collapsed. The fall resulted in a laceration of her left ankle with exposed bone. By the time we reached the scene, Laurie Fritsche, an EMT from the Village of Plover, was already on-scene assessing the patient and applying direct pressure with a trauma dressing. Shortly thereafter, the Stevens Point Paramedic Unit arrived, administered pain medication as we applied a splint to the patient's leg, and prepared the patient for transport.

     In this case, and in the majority of Portage County calls, the patients are transported to Saint Michael's Hospital in Stevens Point, which is a level-3 trauma center. The emergency department has eight rooms and staffs two to three nurses plus one paramedic, who remain in the ED their entire shift.

     The RRU operates outside of Stevens Point in the rural area of Portage County. Its goal is to lower response times for paramedic-level care in the rural areas of the county, where patients might wait 15 minutes or more for the ambulance to arrive. Currently, the RRU is only staffed seven hours per weekday and 14 hours on Saturday. The RRU also posts at special events.

     The vehicle itself is a Toyota 4Runner and is leased to the county at no charge by Mark Motors in Plover, WI, so don't discount a similar approach in your own rural community.