Alamo EMS

Alamo EMS

Motto: "Medical Transportation to meet your every need"
Established	1966
Headquarters	Poughkeepsie, New York
Jurisdiction	Dutchess County, Putnam County, Orange County, Ulster County, New York, Poughkeepsie, NY.
Employees	170 Full Time
BLS or ALS	ALS
Ambulances	35
Medical director	Francine Brooks, MD.
Responses	50,000/year
Website	http://www.alamoems.com/

Alamo Emergency Medical Servies, Inc. (Alamo EMS) was an Advanced Life Support (ALS) and Basic Life Support (BLS) ambulance service owned by Health Quest, with transportation services in the Hudson Valley region of New York. Alamo operated ambulances staffed by emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics. Alamo held Emergency Response 911 contracts and CON's in Dutchess County, New York, Putnam County, New York, Orange County, New York, & Ulster County, New York. Within Dutchess County, Alamo had been assingned a department ID number of "81"

History

Alamo Ambulance began in the early 1960’s in Binghamton, NY by Paramedic James Alamo. In 1966 Jim Alamo, moved the company to Poughkeepsie, New York. On March 21, 1966 The Poughkeepsie Common Council voted to contract with Alamo and replace the ambulance contract they had with Vassar and St Francis Hospitals. The initial contact called for Alamo to bill $20 per private call, $16 for welfare calls and a $5 surcharge if oxygen was used. Alamo EMS was one of the main EMS companies to offer services to Dutchess County in the late 1900s. Before ambulances were readily available, Alamo would have "Fly Cars" or Paramedics that have an SUV with all the equipment an ambulance has, including a drug box. This was more practical for towns and jurisdictions that didn't have enough residents to merit a separate ambulance. Often the Paramedic would ride in the back of a town ambulance to transport the patient.

The headquarters of Alamo in the City of Poughkeepsie, seen from an ambulance.

In 1996 Alamo became the 51st Ambulance Service in the United States and the first not-for-profit in the Northeast to be accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services (CAAS). CAAS [1] is a non-profit organization which was established to encourage and promote quality patient care in America’s medical transportation system. The primary focus of the Commission’s standards is high-quality patient care. This is accomplished by establishing national standards which not only address the delivery of patient care, but also the ambulance service’s total operation and its relationships with other agencies, the general public, and the medical community. The Commission’s standards often exceed state or local licensing requirements. In 2004 Alamo received its second perfect score for reaccreditation and still maintains its accreditation today.

Up until 2009, Alamo EMS was the only community owned ambulance service and was governed by an all volunteer board of trustees comprised of community leaders, and under the guidance the umbrella organization Health Quest. As a "not-for-profit, charitable organization all operating funds went back into Alamo and increased the quality of the Ambulance service offered.

Other than emergency medical services, Alamo operated a full time Ambulette service which provided service to the disabled 7 days a week. Also a Training and Education division hosted a wide array of medical training available to all employees and residents of the jurisdictions of the town's they serve

Alamo Medic 31 at its final day of operation in the Town Of Beekman.

On June 4,2009, HealthQuest, the parent company of Alamo EMS, announced to its employees that the company has been sold to TransCare, and the transaction would've been complete by August 1,2009. The date was subsequently been pushed back to a then to be determined date due to the complexities involved in the takeover. On September 19,2009 the buyout was complete and all Alamo Services were terminated.

Proposed Merger

On December 14, 2007, Northern Dutchess Paramedics announced a proposed merger with Alamo EMS. The application was the first step in the regulatory process toward creating an organization which was aimed at better serving the Hudson Valley community in providing emergency and ambulance services. The joint venture would also have required approval from the New York State Attorney General’s Office, and the New York State Supreme Court. Health Quest and Northern Dutchess Paramedics anticipated that the regulatory process would take approximately six to twelve months, however as of December 31 2008 the merger was not completed and is now abandoned. If it had been completed it would have created the largest independent ambulance provider in the Hudson Valley Region.

On December 17,2008, the two companies announced that the merger had fallen through, and would not be completed. The companies claimed they had differences that could not be settled. In January 2009 HealthQuest began allocating additional funding to Alamo to aid their goal of covering most of the towns in Dutchess County.

Final Management

General Manager, Marc Reina
Operations Manager, Vacant
Communications Manager, Larry Bigando
Project Manager, George Thomas

See also

• Beacon Volunteer Ambulance Corps
• City Of Beacon Fire Department

External links

• Alamo EMS Home Page