Title
Approval of FDCARES Program Licensing Agreement
Recommended Action
Committee Recommendation:
Not referred to a committee
City Manager Recommendation:
Move to approve and authorize the Mayor to sign the FDCARES Program Licensing Agreement with the Kent Regional Fire Authority.
Report
Issue:
An FDCARES interlocal agreement between the City of Olympia and Kent Regional Fire Authority needs to be replaced with a FDCARES Program Licensing Agreement to better reflect the current working agreement between the two parties.
Staff Contact:
Greg Wright, Deputy Fire Chief, 360.753.8466
Presenter(s):
Greg Wright, Deputy Fire Chief
Background and Analysis:
The Fire Department has been affiliated with FDCARES for about 5 years. The intent of the program is to provide citizens with alternatives to calling 9-1-1 for non-emergency issues. Typically people are referred to the program after being seen by firefighters after several non-emergent requests for aid that were reported to 9-1-1. A fire department member then contacts the person and tries to help them meet a need. Those needs can be filled by education, referral to other non-emergent providers, minor supplies or accessibility devices and other simple items. If the intervention is successful, the result is that the person does not have to call 9-1-1 as often and is able to live more comfortably. This can result in less demand on the fire department and less cost for healthcare.
The program that Olympia has adopted was pioneered locally by Kent Fire Department. Kent copyrighted the name and logo. By signing an initial interlocal agreement with Kent, Olympia has been able to learn from their development. Initially there was a yearly charge for this affiliation but that charge was dropped when Kent received grant funding. Language in the old agreement does not reflect this change.
The old interlocal agreement needs to be replaced with this Program Affiliation Agreement. To do so, the Fire Chief must request termination of the old agreement via letter and this affiliation agreement must be authorized. The Fire Chief is ready to deliver that letter as part of this process. This is a housekeeping measure as nothing about the day to day activities of FDCARES in Olympia will change.
There is no cost to the City. The licensing agreement then becomes managed by the Fire Department and will not come back to council.
Kent Fire Department is requesting that all participants use a computer database program that takes patient care data and sorts it to better target FDCARES resources. Kent Fire is not requiring that any agency involved in FDCARES must participate with the data program. This data management program would be an advantage to Olympia Fire Department shortening the time it takes for field crews on different shifts to notice a pattern of need from an individual. The program uses the Olympia data to create a prioritized list of persons that the Olympia FDCARES program may wish to contact to provide support in a non-emergent way. The program then de-identifies the data and merges the statistics back to Kent Fire. Kent Fire merges this data with de-identified data from other FDCARES participants around Washington State (also on in CA, CO and Hawaii). This combined data begins to create a large enough statistical pool that the concept can be shown to potential partners in healthcare with the end goal of getting the local healthcare industry to support the fire department monetarily in expanding this service. The potential savings for the healthcare industry at large are projected to be impressive but data is needed to prove this hypothesis.
By endorsing this FDCARES Program Licensing Agreement the Olympia Fire Department FDCARES program; continues to assist our customer in ways that are less costly than a 9-1-1 call and trip to the emergency department, participates in a larger potentially ground breaking project and makes tangible steps to save funds for the greater healthcare system.
Neighborhood/Community Interests (if known):
N/A
Options:
1. Approve and authorize the Mayor to sign the FDCARES Program Licensing Agreement with the Kent Regional Fire Authority.
2. Do not approve the Program Licensing Agreement.
Financial Impact:
There is no cost for this affiliation agreement but the Fire Department would expend approximately $5,000 from operating funds sometime in 2015 for the data managing program. On-going costs for the data management program are expected to be under $250 per year.