By Whitney Vickers
GREENE COUNTY — Kettering Health Network has rolled out a fleet of 26 new patient transport vehicles that will be seen in Greene County in an effort to keep passengers as comfortable as possible.
The fleet includes 17 ambulances, two mobile intensive care units, five ambulates and two Ford Explorers for supervisors.
The vehicles include cots that are electronically moved as opposed to having the paramedic having to lift it themselves, as well as access to the patients electronic medical record, which means the vehicles are better able to communicate information about the passengers to the hospitals.
“This improves our ability to move patients from one location to another, whether it’s discharging a patient home, moving them to Greene Memorial (Hospital) to Kettering Medical Center or to Greene Oaks (retirement center), it improves our ability to move patients,” said Bill Mangas, trauma and EMS outreach manager for KHN.
The fleet comes after KHN established a partnership with Buckeye Ambulance. While Mangas said a big motivator for establishing new transport vehicles was improving patient comfort, he added that the partnership comes in response to the growth of the network itself.
He said the new vehicles will open up 100 new jobs.
“We always [say] minutes matter — we don’t want delays, we don’t want them waiting to be moved or transferred — it makes them uncomfortable,” Mangas said. “We want them to be comfortable and as well taken care of as possible so this enhances our ability to move patients and keep patient flow going.”
