Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Services has released highlights from the 2023 fiscal year budget. Details below per MCFRS:
Link to the Complete Budget: MCFRS FY23 Proposed Budget
MCFRS is voluntarily participating in a new Supplemental Payment Program with Maryland Department of Health which provides federal reimbursement for certain qualified ambulance transports. The program is intended to infuse EMS systems with sustainable funding to support EMS operations and create enhancements. Through this program, the County Executive intends to fund several initiatives in his proposed FY23 budget:
- Add a paramedic chase car to enhance advanced life support (ALS) emergency medical service delivery in Silver Spring.
- Add an EMS Duty Officer position to enhance advanced life support field supervision.
This increases coverage from two to three EMS Duty Officers. - Add a permanent Emergency Medical Service System Capacity Officer to coordinate
patient transport to hospitals and balance emergency department loads. This enhancement is expected to assist in reducing hospital drop times and increase
EMS transport availability. - Increase the capacity of the Mobile Integrated Health program by adding two
paramedics to support the existing social worker and registered nurse on home visits, complement the County’s Mobile Crisis Team and enhance
other public health efforts, assist with emergency room diversion options, and address the needs of frequent 911 callers. - Increase support for local fire and rescue department emergency medical service
activities infrastructure. - Add an Emergency Medical Service Quality Management Battalion Chief to evaluate
emergency medical services system performance and assist in optimizing
resource deployment.
This enhancement list strives to ensure that the services we are provide are of the highest quality by bolstering point-of-care supervision, enabling correction, and measuring clinical data and patient safety metrics. These enhancements increase administrative bandwidth to expand on current quality programs and improvement initiatives. The proposed FY23 budget provides the framework to increase agility, introduces scalable efficiencies and innovations to meet the needs of Montgomery County’s residents, visitors and business community.
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