Responding to the need for greater operational economy, two area ambulance squads – Elverson Emergency Medical Service and Honey Brook Fire Co. Ambulance – have merged into one organization.
Under the merger, the newly formed Elverson-Honey Brook Area Emergency Medical Service will continue to operate two stations as before: Elverson Ambulance as the main station on Route 401, Honey Brook as a sub-station at its same location in Honey Brook Borough.
With consolidation, the merged company will realize efficiencies in a number of ways, stated Joseph Carmen, director and chief of operations.
First and foremost is improved response time, he said.
“When an ambulance is dispatched from the main station in Elverson Borough, an ambulance from the Honey Brook sub-station will “float” into our coverage area and respond to any new emergency calls that might come in. Previously, Honey Brook would have responded to new calls but, since they were responding from Honey Brook – five miles from the Elverson station – the response time would have been longer.”
An example of this occurred just days ago. One of the Elverson ambulances was out on a call when a second call came in from a person suffering chest pains. When the call came in, the Honey Brook ambulance – which was already en route to its float position in the Elverson coverage area – was able to respond quickly to the new emergency.
An improvement in the deployment of personnel is another benefit of the merger, Carmen explained. Elverson Ambulance still has 29 active members (22 career, seven volunteers), and Honey Brook has 30 personnel (20 career, 10 volunteers) but now, he said, “the combined squad can draw on the entire pool of personnel.”
Another big advantage is in the purchase of equipment and supplies, Carmen added. Supplies can be bought in bulk now and, in the event a new vehicle is needed, a discount on the purchase price can be expected.
The genesis for the merger came three years ago when Chaz Brogan, EMS Captain and Daytime Supervisor for Honey Brook Fire Co. ambulance, was charting ambulance statistics. That’s when he found something disturbing.
“I noticed that we were not getting full reimbursement for every call we went out on,” he recalled. “We were losing funding for this call and sometimes the next call as well. I brought this to the attention of company members and told them we had three choices: to get more funding, to merge with another squad; or to cut ambulance services.”
The decision: both the Elverson and Honey Brook squads formed committees to weigh the pros and cons of a merger.
“Once the merger was a ‘done deal,’ we had meetings with township officials and residents to alert them as to what we were going to do and how it would benefit the communities,” said Brogan. “We then had to inform the Chester, Berks and Lancaster county emergency operations centers to our new dispatch system, our new dispatch number (189), change our software and notify the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission as well”.
Currently, said Brogan, “We are in the process of building a new website for the combined organization. It will include the names of the people who head up the organization, a list of crew members, and contact information.”
Until the site is completed, he noted, members of the public can continue to reach Honey Brook station at 610-273-2539 or at http://www.honeybrookfire.org or Elverson at 610-286-8925 or at http://elversonems.org. 9-1-1 is strictly for emergency calls or requests for transport, he added.
