Fire Chief Pitches ALS Upgrade Plan

Fire Chief Pitches ALS Upgrade Plan
Eryn Dion
News Staff Writer

TEMPLETON  Fire Chief Ray LaPorte’s mantra when he accepted the job two years ago was: “All ALS, all the time.”

Now he’s cashing in on that promise.

Last week, he pitched to selectmen a plan for upgrading the town’s ambulance service to Advance Life Support-level care.

“It wasn’t as critical that we get there in three months or six months or four years,” LaPorte said.

“It was just important that we did it the right way, and I feel we’ve done that.”

The right way, Chief LaPorte explained, included putting himself, his staff and the department under a microscope, examining the policies, procedures and personnel already in place for potential improvements.

What he found were several shortcomings that prevented the ambulance service from running even adequate Basic Life Support, never mind advanced care.

“We had a whole bunch of dedicated people that were really trying to do an unmanageable workload,” the chief said.

 “We’re 8,000 residents generating 1,000 calls a year for service over about 38 square miles, and that’s a lot for a bunch of call volunteers.”

By revising department policy, bringing all training in-house and taking on additional staff, Chief LaPorte said he has been able to lay the groundwork for the department’s eventual transition to ALS.

While raising the bar certainly presented new challenges, the chief said his whole department supports the change and agrees that it’s better off operationally than two years ago.

“These are very resilient people,” Chief LaPorte said of his staff.

“These are people that will get up in the middle of the night for a two-hour call and make $30, and do it night after night.

We’re just looking to raise the bar and make it a better service to give back to the town.”

Chief LaPorte also tightened the service’s finances, closing holes that allowed bills to go unpaid and ensuring ambulance revenues stayed with the department instead of being used to lower the town’s tax rate.

With a larger, dedicated staff and better procedures in place, the department is able to cover more calls and recoup revenue that would previously be lost to outside vendors providing mutual aid in town.

“For me, it’s like: what can we do to get these calls done because this is our revenue,” the chief said.

“It’s Templeton’s revenue and it shouldn’t be going to outside vendors just because we can’t do the job.”

With almost all the pieces in place, including a new ALS-equipped ambulance now in service, Chief LaPorte told selectmen the only major hurdle left was licensing — which he hopes to have submitted in the next two weeks.

“I’m guessing within a month or two we’ll have it,” Chief LaPorte stated.

Once they have the licenses, Chief LaPorte said the department needs only to negotiate new contracts with its billing company, buy new medications, and rework its computer system to add new layers of encryption to patient records.

The chief asked selectmen to “seriously consider” creating two additional full-time equivalent staffers to help handle the increased call volume.

Board members asked the chief what would happen if, when they “flipped the switch,” the ALS service ended up being too much for the department.

“Failure is not an option,” Chief LaPorte said.