OKTIBBEHA COUNTY — A recent switch to OCH Regional Medical Center’s ambulance services from in-house service to a third-party ambulance provider is now rippling out to other departments in the county.
On Wednesday morning, the board of supervisors approved making the University of Mississippi Medical Center the medical controller for Oktibbeha County Fire Department. Fire Services Coordinator Patrick Warner requested the change from MedStat — the new third-party ambulance service for OCH — to simplify communication for volunteer firefighters who are on the scene of a medical emergency.
“The first responders in the county have to have some kind of medical control,” Warner said. “Temporarily, we are signed up under MedStat.”
Medical control is the oversight of an Emergency Medical System by a qualified physician. Warner told the board this allows first responders, like EMTs and paramedics, to call an emergency room doctor to receive instructions on patient care when a situation falls outside of their scope of practice.
“First responders have a scope of practice,” Warner said. “I’ll use an EMT for an example. I’m an EMT, and I can’t go beyond my scope of practice. That is basically delivering oxygen, stuff like that. If I pull up on the scene and I see somebody’s legs are cut off, that’s outside of my scope of practice to handle that situation. … If I’m under a med control agreement with the state, I can call an ER doctor, and he can give me directions on how to handle that scene.”
Warner said OCH handled the fire services’ medical control prior to the hospital outsourcing its ambulance services to MedStat in June.
Dave Eldridge, director of operations for MedStat, said the ambulance service currently gets its medical control service from UMMC across the eight counties it serves. This allows MedStat responders to call the same medical provider for instructions even if they cross county lines.
While the fire services shifted to MedStat initially, Warner said his personnel on-scene — if they are dealing with a medical issue beyond their scope of practice — must call MedStat medical control to put them in touch with a doctor. A deal with UMMC will allow fire personnel to call an on-call doctor directly.
Switching to UMMC as the medical controller will also help with consistency over time, Warner told The Dispatch, as ambulance services may change again, but the department has to stay covered by a medical controller at all times to remain compliant to state law.
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