Town of Princeton, MA
Meeting Minutes
Public Safety Committee
January 18, 2011
Town Hall Annex
Chairman Sulmasy called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. Members present were Jim Comer, Bill Dino, Bob Sauer, Charlie Schmohl, and Neil Sulmasy. Absent were Jon Fudeman and Stan Moss. Also attending were Selectman Edie Morgan and Town Administrator John Lebeaux
Acceptance of Minutes
The Committee voted unanimously to accept the minutes of November 23 and December 9, 2010. John was reminded to send the Committee the corrected minutes of November 3, 2010
Discussion on Ambulance Software:
Bill as the department’s ALS Coordinator explained that IMC, the software company that made and supports the public safety software the town uses, has been sold to a new company, TriTech, and that TriTech will not offer support to the IMC medical component. TriTech wants clients to adopt its Fusion ePCR software. Charlie commented that the IMC software was never implemented in Princeton for EMS purposes.
Bill explained that he currently needs to manually input data. The Fusion ePCR software would automatically handle the state-required MATRIS reporting. The Fusion quote is incomplete but is more than $6,000 per year.
Bill favored a software package used in Barre, EZ-PCR which includes the MATRIS reporting, Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) reporting, billing, and Patient Care reporting. This system would eliminate the need for Coastal Medical Billing’s services. The cost to Princeton for EZ-PCR is a startup fee of $858.60, an annual fee of $1,600, and a per report faxing charge of 21 cents. This software does more than IMC, costs less, and would also eliminate the need to pay Coastal.
Bill elaborated that under the current system quality control suffers because his time is dominated by the required regulatory filings that now require a great deal of his time for manual entry and to backtrack run reports when they are incomplete or unclear.
Bill strongly recommended adoption of the EZ-PCR software package for EMS.
Discussion on January 25 meeting on with Fire/EMS
The Committee expects the bulk of the meeting will be devoted to receiving the presentation by Fire/EMS.
The Committee believes the lack of backup for personnel who provide key administrative tasks (John Bennett, payroll; Bill EMS reporting) is a critical weak point in the current organization.
Neil will request the Fire Chief provide a sample of his weekly schedule, an organizational chart, and job descriptions.
Address Committee’s charge from the BOS and set direction for 2011
The Committee reviewed its charge in general and those elements that that will apply at the January 25 meeting: regional dispatch, Fire/EMS response and coverage, and the prospect of a full-time Fire Chief. The Committee discussed with no finding if EMS should be a part of the Fire Department or an independent department.
Other Business
None
The meeting adjourned at 8:31 PM by unanimous vote.
Respectfully Submitted,
John Lebeaux,
Town Administrator
Referenced Documents
TriTech Fusion ePCR quote, 12-28-10
Emails (2) from B. Dino regarding TriTech Fusion ePCR quote
Email from B. Dino forwarding EMSNEWS Digest - 27 Dec 2010 to 28 Dec 2
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