Medstar seeing more interest for emergency medical technicians in the face of the pandemic

NBC 25/Fox 66 News – Ambulance response times in Genesee County have been a topic of debate for some time.

RELATED LINK: New ambulance deals lead to debate within Genesee County 911 board

Some cities have even made special agreements with the ambulance company to try and speed things up.

We’ve been following MedStar for quite some time now.

Back in January, Mid-Michigan NOW first introduced you to a new program to help boost recruitment.

Now our Remi Murrey is circling back to see how recruitment and staffing have been in the face of the pandemic.

“We’ve filled four EMT (Emergency Medical Technicians) academies right now,” said Medstar CEO Kolby Miller. “We’ve got a fifth one coming in November, and this will really be the way we bring people into the ems industry.”

RELATED LINK: New Medstar employees finish Emergency Medical Technician licensure training program

At a time where it’s tough for many businesses to find workers, Miller says that’s the least of their concern.

“We’ve trained full-time 100 new EMTs to be licensed ems professionals, working in the ambulances and working on the streets at a time when the entire healthcare system is under quite a burden with all the different patient-scenarios that we see,” said Miller.

Throughout the pandemic, Miller tells Mid-Michigan NOW they’ve seen a lot of changes.

One of which involves how emergency medical technicians have easier access to help patients in need.

“Because of COVID, some of the things we used to do in our doctors’ offices, or in urgent care, emergency rooms or as hospital in-patients, we’ve now realized because of the pandemic some of these things are better off done in the patients’ homes,” explained Miller. “We can interface with their physician, or their treating team and make sure that the patient continues to get better, but in a way that we wouldn’t have thought of probably before the COVID pandemic started.”