Paramedic Program
Overview
The UConn Health Center Fire Department Paramedic Program has
provided quality medical care to
the residents of the Farmington Valley since 1972. We currently
have contracts with the towns of Farmington, Avon and Canton to
provide the primary paramedic service to their communities. We
also have contracts with the towns of Burlington and Simsbury to
provide secondary paramedic service, or services when their
primary paramedics are unavailable. Additionally, the UConn
Health Center
medics will provide mutual aid services to any agency that is in
need of a paramedic, generally an agency who is transporting to
UConn Health Center or to a city hospital where the
agency will be passing near the Health Center. Our current
roster reflects fourteen of our staff of twenty are paramedic
licensed.
Operations
The UConn Fire Department operates a paramedic intercept
service meaning that our paramedics respond to medical
emergencies in a non-transport vehicle and meet with a
transporting service. If the patient requires an advanced level
of care, the UConn Fire Department medic will board the
transport vehicle to provide the required paramedic care in
route to the destination hospital. Currently, our medics operate
out of one vehicle, Rescue 2, which is a Ford F350 outfitted
with a utility box to store the required medical equipment as
well as fire equipment as firefighting is a collateral duty for
the paramedics. Rescue 2 is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week, with two paramedics, the “Rescue Driver” and “Rescue
Technician”. The technician is responsible for all primary
medical calls and will ride to the hospital with the
transporting service. The driver is responsible for operating
the rescue to calls, picking up the technician from their
destination hospital and for any secondary calls for
service while the technician is unavailable. In the case of a
secondary call, the Rescue Driver will respond to the emergency,
and transport if needed.
The overall staffing minimum for the UConn Health Center Fire
Department is two firefighter/paramedics assigned to Rescue 2
and two firefighters assigned to Engine 1, the maximum staffing
being a total of five (three on Engine 1). There are times that
the firefighters assigned to Engine 1 are also paramedics. The
UConn Fire Department is committed to providing the highest
level of quality medical response, maintaining contractual
obligations and ensuring adequate public safety coverage to the
UConn Health Center’s campus. As calls for service are
constantly increasing, there are times when both paramedics on
Rescue 2 are committed to other medical calls and unable to
respond to additional requests for paramedic service. When faced
with this request, if an engine paramedic is available, Engine 1
will respond to local contiguous areas and provide the paramedic
to the community. |
