Washington County commissioners agreed Tuesday, Feb. 21, to cut ties with longtime emergency services provider Metro West Ambulance.
County officials say they want more modern dispatch systems and greater accountability, something for which they’ve criticized Metro West.
Commissioners voted 3-1, with Commissioner Roy Rogers absent, to start negotiating a full contract with American Medical Response ambulance services.
Washington County has been with Metro West for more than 25 years, beginning its agreement with the Hillsboro-based company in 1997.
But the county sought additional bidders to provide ambulance services going forward. A panel of fire service, 911 dispatch, and hospital experts combined with county staff and public advocates ranked American Medical Response significantly higher — a sum of 45 points higher — than Metro West, which placed second in their evaluation, and third-place Falck, which handles ambulance services in the Salem area and across 26 countries.
Metro West’s contract expires this summer, and the county intends to have AMR on the roads by July 1.
Commissioner Jerry Willey sought to delay the decision Tuesday, saying the full commission ought to be present. However, Chair Kathryn Harrington and Commissioners Nafisa Fai and Pam Treece voted in favor of moving toward a contract with AMR.
Tim Case, Washington County EMS senior program coordinator, said AMR can meet the county’s goals of updating dispatch systems and sharing response time data and patient outcomes beyond the scope of the current contract.
“They have a bench depth to work with national leaders in deployment modeling, how to staff and place ambulances in the correct positions to better serve our county more effectively,” Case said.
AMR is part of Global Medical Response Solutions, a conglomerate of emergency services including Rural/Metro Fire, which services portions of Southern Oregon, REACH Air Medical Services in North Bend, and Med-Trans Corporation in Klamath Falls and Bend.
Instant approval
Members of Metro West’s executive team pleaded their case for the commissioners to reconsider the staff recommendation to begin negotiating with AMR before the vote was taken.
Shawn Baird, chief executive officer of Metro West, asked that the commissioners delay their response until all five members were present and consider the importance of having a local company oversee local EMS services.
“For a contract of this size and absolute importance to the citizens and residents and visitors to Washington County — it’s their health and safety — we think that a little bit of a pause in allowing the commissioner to hear from proposers themselves and do a deeper analysis would be a very valuable piece,” Baird said.
Willey asked that the commission decision be postponed for two weeks while “intangibles” were considered before a vote of the full commission be taken.
“I think the transition to new and upgraded EMS system will be much easier and much better with Metro West because they are already in place, they are familiar with the (Washington County Consolidated Communications Agency) emergency 911 system, and I think we would be remiss if we made this decision without all five commissioners being here as well,” Willey said.
His motion to wait and gather more information died on the floor without a second, and Harrington, Fai and Treece approved a new motion to move forward with AMR negotiations.
Fai said before the vote that she had been in on the talks in recent years regarding Metro West improving its systems, and even then, she was surprised Metro West scored as high as it did on the grading rubric, “which suggests there’s perhaps some improvements that are being made.”
Still, Fai said she supported the county staff’s recommendation to begin talks with AMR.
“You did your research, you put in the time, and you investigated and really thought hard if 45 points is worth a system overhaul, and you’ve answered that for us,” Fai said.
Commissioners still must approve a final contract before AMR rolls out in Washington County.
“We do intend to appeal this decision and feel strongly in our basis of protest,” the company said after the vote in a statement provided by Metro West spokesperson Jan Lee. “We understand that this is one step in the process and there are opportunities to reverse this direction.”Metro West’s rocky road
Metro West’s relationship with local and regional agencies has been tenuous at times in recent years, resulting in Washington County’s decision to seek alternatives.
In May 2022, Washington County said it would not renew its contract with Metro West, stating that the current contract prevented the county from making needed updates to EMS policies on dispatch services and metrics reporting. Metro West’s contract is set to end June 30.
Metro West was still able to apply for a new contract through the selection process set out over the last few months.
The callout for a new ambulance provider came weeks before a follow-up audit report that found Washington County’s contract with Metro West may open the county up to liability.
John Hutzler, Washington County’s then-auditor, said in a December presentation that the county wasn’t holding Metro West to dispatch standards outlined in the existing EMS contract.
Metro West’s contract required that ambulances must be dispatched within 60 seconds of an emergency call being placed.
Hutzler’s report stated that, rather than applying penalties to Metro West for not meeting the 60-second standard, the county instead removed the penalties for not meeting it from its ordinances and internal policies.
Metro West also landed in hot water in Yamhill County about five years ago when the ambulance provider was accused of operating in an area where EMS services were already overseen by a regional firefighting agency.
In 2017, Metro West was sued by the cities of Newberg and McMinnville, Yamhill County and Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue for allegedly illegal ambulance pickups in Newberg that undercut a vital revenue stream. The civil suit was dismissed in January 2020 as a result of a settlement.