Jeff Kelly

CRANBERRY TWP — The work for Cranberry Township Emergency Medical Service is increasing, but they are keeping up with demand and looking to grow in certain areas.

Calls increased by 4 percent in 2016 — up to 3,885 from 3,726 in 2015 — said Jeff Kelly, Cranberry EMS chief, in his annual report to the Cranberry board of supervisors at its Thursday meeting.

While answering more calls, EMS staff also completed 2,198 continuing education hours, trained 287 people in CPR and installed 247 car seats through its car seat fitting program.

“We’ve taken it to a level that most EMS services haven’t,” said Bill Humes, paramedic and Cranberry EMS training officer, of their focus on training and continuing education. “It’s all to create the best providers that we can.”

One focus for 2017 is to increase the number of subscriptions to Cranberry EMS. Insurance reimbursements and billing make up about 85 percent of the EMS’s annual revenue, but they are “tanking,” Kelly said. Subscriptions make up about 12 percent of revenue.

With a subscription to Cranberry EMS, people pay an annual fee not to have any balanced billing for medically necessary transport. Cranberry EMS has agreements with other area EMS, so subscribers are also covered in other parts of southern Butler County and northern Allegheny County.

An individual subscription is $45, seniors pay $40 and families pay $65 for a year. This is compared to the average bill for a trip in an ambulance, which ranges from $800 to $1,000, Kelly said.

“It’s about peace of mind that if I need an ambulance, I’m covered,” Kelly said.

The service mails out about 14,000 subscription cards to households in the coverage area which includes Cranberry, Seven Fields and part of New Sewickley in Beaver County. They get back about 18 percent to 25 percent, which is about 2,500 to 3,500 subscribers, Kelly said.

New ambulances

Cranberry EMS also will be getting another new ambulance in April or May, identical to the two that went into operation in early 2016, Kelly said. The state-of-the-art ambulances have seats in the rear of the vehicle that are front-facing for better access to the patient.

The ambulances also have yellow and blue paint jobs for high visibility.

Kelly said the focus of the new ambulances was crash survival and crash avoidance. For EMS providers, the front-facing seats are much safer in a crash than the traditional bench seats.

Although the adjustment from a bench seat to front-facing seat took some time, Humes said he feels much safer in the new ambulances.

Kelly said they hope to have the entire fleet replaced with the new style of ambulances by 2018.

The changes Cranberry made also are getting some notice from EMS regionally and nationally. Humes said people have reached out to him and Kelly about why and how they made the changes to their ambulances and how it’s worked for them.

“The little things we did in Cranberry to make our providers safer are traveling across the country,” Humes said. “Cranberry is a very progressive ambulance service. We’re not just there to take people to the hospital and come back.”