Baptist Ambulance donates three AEDs to Booneville Fire Department

Fire Department to begin providing medical first response on April 1

The Baptist Ambulance service in Booneville recently presented the Booneville Fire Department with three automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) to be placed on each of its rescue units.

On April 1, the Booneville Fire Department will use the AEDs and other equipment to begin providing first response to medical calls within Prentiss County. The City of Booneville’s Board of Alderman approved the expansion of the fire department’s role at a recent meeting.

“Working together with first responder partners is critical to providing the best quality emergency medical service to the people of Booneville,” said Baptist Ambulance Operations Manager Tracey Moreland. “Through this donation and expanding partnership, we will all work together to continue to raise the bar for emergency medical care.”

“The Booneville Fire Department is proud to partner with Baptist Ambulance to create an effective, integrated emergency response in the City of Booneville,” said Booneville Fire Department Chief Michael Rutherford. “This equipment upgrade to our engines allows us to expand our medical response capabilities, and we thank Baptist Ambulance for this donation.”

Every Booneville Fire Department response vehicle has a licensed emergency medical responder (EMR). The Baptist Ambulance team will provide all continuing education and training needs to the fire department to ensure medical certifications remain current and that both ambulance and fire department personnel work tougher to provide seamless medical response.

Both Baptist Ambulance and the Booneville Fire Department are dispatched from the local Prentiss County 9-1-1 Center. In 2017, Baptist Ambulance also donated a computer automated dispatch (CAD) system currently to the county 9-1-1 center, a value of $150,000. Baptist Ambulance provided the installation, testing and training on the software, which allows for better call tracking, data analysis and therefore, more scientific allocation of vehicles and resources to best serve the community.

Baptist Ambulance, a member of the Priority Ambulance family of companies, has provided emergency ambulance service to Prentiss County since June 1, 2017. Priority Ambulance has a master services agreement with Baptist Memorial Health Care to provide medical transport options throughout its service area in West Tennessee and Mississippi.

About Baptist Ambulance 

Baptist Ambulance provides the ambulance transport services to Baptist Memorial Health Care’s 18 hospitals and six 9-1-1 service areas in Tennessee and Mississippi. Baptist Ambulance has more than 25 ambulances and more than 300 emergency personnel.

The ambulance dispatch center is located within Baptist’s Patient Placement Center, where nurses assign physician specialists and hospitals bed and treatment venues through one phone call, creating better efficiency. Baptist’s e-ICU program is also located in the same suite.

The company was created as part of a master services agreement between Baptist Memorial Health Care and national ambulance company Priority Ambulance.

About Priority Ambulance

Based in Knoxville, Tenn., Priority Ambulance provides the highest level of clinical excellence in emergency and nonemergency medical care to the communities it serves. Throughout its national service area, approximately 2,000 highly trained paramedics and EMTs staff a fleet of approximately 400 state-of-the-art vehicles with the latest medical equipment and technology.

Priority Ambulance’s family of companies operates under trusted local brands providing medical transport options in nine states. The Priority Ambulance company partners include Shoals Ambulance in Alabama; Maricopa Ambulance in Arizona; Puckett EMS in Georgia and Southeast Tennessee; Central EMS in Georgia; Seals Ambulance in Indiana; Kunkel Ambulance in Upstate New York; Trans Am Ambulance in western New York and Northwestern Pennsylvania; Medshore Ambulance in South Carolina; and Priority Ambulance in East Tennessee. Priority Ambulance also serves Baptist Memorial Health Care facilities in West Tennessee and Mississippi under the Baptist brand.

For more information, visit www.priorityambulance.com.

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