Emergency service providers from around Carlton County are taking the next step in a strategic planning process aimed at better meeting their ongoing needs and challenges moving on into the future.
A group of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) providers from the eastern part of the county gathered for a three-day meeting at the Cloquet Forestry Center in May. Many have continued to meet ever since.
The May session was facilitated by Phil Kouwe and Bruce Caldwell from ESCI, the nationally known consulting firm retained by Carlton County in 2006 to conduct a study of the county's entire fire, rescue and EMS system.
"That study, while countywide in scope, clearly pointed out the problems that exist in the eastern part of the county and discussed a number of options the affected communities could explore," said Carlton County Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Mike Stafford. "The study report actually provided the impetus for the development of the joint strategic planning process undertaken by those communities."
Represented at the May planning sessions were the Wrenshall, Scanlon, Thomson Township, Perch Lake, Carlton and Cloquet departments, along with representatives of their governing bodies, the Fond du Lac Reservation and Carlton County.
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Stafford pointed out that as populations and businesses in the county have continued to grow, the demand for effective emergency medical services has grown with them. Carlton and Cloquet, the only two communities in this part of the county with ambulance service, are having increasing difficulty meeting this growing demand for their services.
"If one of them goes down," posed Carlton Mayor Dennis Randelin, "what would happen then? We need to make sure one day we don't turn around and say, 'We don't have an ambulance available,' and then wonder how we got to that point."
Randelin said Carlton just recently started billing the various townships within its provider area to help pay the cost of EMS service and the city has also gone to a paid, on-call basis to provide more comprehensive coverage for the area. All that, however, takes money and manpower - two things in increasingly short supply.
"All I know is we have to do something," said Randelin. "The costs are becoming astronomical, and insurance and Medicare don't pay enough to cover them."
Randelin said with more and more rigorous training requirements and fewer volunteers willing and available to tackle them, the county's EMS providers need to start doing more training together and sharing of other resources as well.
"Whether we're talking career or non-career firefighters, I have a real interest in exploring what we can do together to share costs," said Randelin. "I think we all need to cooperate and work together to make sure people get the best possible service available."
Stafford reported the four most critical issues facing the eastern part of the county that have been identified in the strategic planning sessions; they include: cooperation, EMS sustainability, recruitment and retention, and communications. In order to deal with those critical issues, the working group also identified the following goals and objectives:
- Develop strategies for cooperative relationships and move toward formal and informal partnerships that will maintain or improve service for the entire area in the most effective manner possible;
- Redevelop EMS service delivery into a coordinated, cooperative integrated and consistent system that is patient-focused and sustainable;
- Develop and implement cooperative recruitment and retention strategies to enhance the staffing capabilities of all emergency agencies; and
- Work to enhance the capability of the Carlton County Emergency Communications Center to enable it to meet the anticipated needs of the Fire/EMS/Public Safety agencies as they develop and enhance services to meet growing demand.
"I am very pleased with the outcome," commented Kouwe at the conclusion of the initial planning session. "I think the interests of the community were fairly represented. Our primary concern is focused on the growth around Cloquet and the development of EMS services to accommodate that growth. The Fond du Lac Reservation is also concerned about coverage for its growing number of buildings and the associated population. It stands to reason that these sorts of things can be accomplished more efficiently through some sort of regional effort."
Stafford stated the group intends to develop opportunities for participation by the public in the strategic planning process.
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"We'd like the public to weigh in on the types of services it would value so the county can match the expectations of the people with what they're willing to pay for."
