- West Jordan has seen a 4% annual rise in service calls over the last 15 years.
- Fire Chief Derek Maxfield linked the increased calls to health care costs and chronic conditions.
- A new partnership with a home health company aims to address these nonemergency needs.
WEST JORDAN — Firefighters said Wednesday that calls for service have been steadily rising in the city year over year for 15 years now, but they said the reason was not additional fires, nor was it strictly due to population growth.
Instead, West Jordan Fire Chief Derek Maxfield attributed the increase to medical calls.
"As we look at it over the last 15 years, we've been averaging about a 4% increase per year," said Maxfield.
Maxfield said more than 80% of all calls for service are medical, and while his firefighters are trained to respond to medical situations and emergencies, he said the calls aren't always about emergency health issues.
"With the increased costs of health care, people are accessing health care through ambulances oftentimes, rather than going to their doctor or whatever," Maxfield explained. "We are seeing a lot of people reach out and call for an ambulance for things that are chronic conditions or things that maybe don't necessarily necessitate an urgent, emergent response, but people are accessing health care through that."
To better deal with that pattern and the city's aging demographic, Maxfield said the department in the past year took what it believed was a first-of-its-kind step of partnering with a private home health and hospice company to help meet the community's needs.
"When our paramedics go out on a call that maybe is for a chronic condition or something where an elderly patient needs some help and actually needs resources that we can't necessarily provide as ambulance providers and paramedics, our paramedics are able to then refer those patients to this home health and hospice company," Maxfield explained. "We've created a system where it all happens kind of behind the scenes with our reporting. Every morning a report is generated and then information with the patient's permission is sent to this company, and within 24 to 48 hours they will reach out to the patient and see if there is any help they can provide."
Maxfield said many people don't realize those services are available to them, often free of charge because of programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
"I believe we're on the cutting edge," Maxfield said. "I'm not aware of another department in the state, let alone the nation, probably, that is using the model that we're using to do that."
Though he said it was early, Maxfield believed the department's "Ability to Thrive" program has yielded positive results.
"We never want to discourage someone from calling us; we will always respond regardless of the situation," Maxfield said. "We've provided an avenue for them to refer that patient to get the care that they actually need."
