Monday, October 8, 2007
Administrative Center
Third Floor – Room 3220
9:00 a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Asst. Chief Randy Loken, Donn Martin, Jay Loeffler, Matt Zavadsky, Chief Randy Roeck, Dr. Eric Voter
MEMBERS EXCUSED: None
MEMBERS ABSENT: Dr. Voter, Chief Don Dominick
OTHERS PRESENT: Jim Klock
Meeting start time 9:07 a.m.
Ronie Brauer was unable to attend today but Jay has been in contact with her and all minutes and documents have been sent to her.
POLICY AND PROCEDURES FOR MEDICAL DISPATCH
Jim Klock passed out a copy of the MOU which was revised by Gundersen Lutheran’s Attorney. He explained that in Article IV, the term Sunset is a statutory term referring to laws and the section above would need to be worded appropriately from a renewal perspective. Asst. Chief Randy Loken said he has also submitted a copy of the MOU to his Attorney and is waiting to hear back from him. Jay will also submit a copy to Corporate Council as soon as all copies are received.
Article IV – Term and Termination
The language of Article IV was discussed and it was questioned whether a date can be specified for a review process to be done. Matt suggested the language include the wording: the Public Safety Communications Governing Board shall do a format review of this agreement by a designated month and then notify within that 60 day time frame if they want to make modifications or terminate. Jay suggested stating nine months from the start rather than a specific date and it would give them a month to review and still remain within the 60 days. Chief Roeck questioned how often this will be reviewed and if it would be at each Governing Board meeting. Matt suggested the insertion of; nine months from inception, the Public Safety Communications Governing Board will review and recommend modifications to the agreement.
Chief Loken expressed his concerns that this committee would eventually go away and the faces will change over the years and will the individuals who replace us interpret this the same way.
Jay asked the committee if they felt the ground work was laid well enough to take this document to an Attorney at this point or are their changes that still need to be discussed. They agreed it was far enough along.
Jay questioned the provision of 60 days notice to cancellation in Article IV and does this state the agreement is no longer in affect and could someone bring this forward due to a breach or what would substantiate this. Matt advised that the 60 days reflects giving 60 days notice prior to the expiration of the term. It doesn’t address a shorter or midterm cancellation so someone could not cancel prior to that time.
Jim Klock suggested that if the intent of the Governing Board, from the onset of this agreement, is to continue to provide emergency medical dispatch, we may want to word it in a way that it wouldn’t go away before someone else is ready to do take over so there is no lapse of service.
Jay asked if it was clear that Article IV remain as stated adding a provision that; nine months after the affective date for review and recommendation for revision.
Jim Klock suggested something be stated that it will not terminate until it is replaced. Chief Roeck agreed he would like to see it so stated. Matt suggested part of this may be mitigated when you talk to Corporate Council because there is no payment for these services. If there were payment it would become a much larger issue. Gundersen wouldn’t plan on going away unless they are told to go away.
Jay brought up the issue of the title and if everyone is in agreement with taking out Emergency Medical Dispatch and leaving it Pre-Arrival Instructions, or can we add a definition of what EMD is to the very first paragraph and describe EMD in the fact that there are certain aspects of EMD some companies do that other don’t. A suggestion of; for the purpose of this document, Emergency Medical Dispatch or EMD is a general term to describe the reception and management of request for Emergency Medical Assistance in an Emergency Medical Service System. The term EMD is not applying any particular protocol of any particular EMD provider. EMD to APCO is one way and to medical priority is another way and to power phone is another. If we describe EMD to be a general term as apposed to what priority dispatch has we may not run into the concerns about EMD implying there is going to be response determinates.
Chief Roeck suggested this be put underneath the header as a definition or description.
Jim Klock asked where the new language would go that recital A doesn’t, where it specifies this is Emergency Medical Dispatch pre-arrival instructions. Matt said by saying EMD Pre-Arrival instructions, defines for this agreement, EMD pre-arrival instructions are what will be provided under this agreement and nothing more. If we did not have the pre-arrival instructions and straight EMD someone could say, EMD is an entire package that included response determinants but we’re not going to be doing that in this case. All that is being done by Gundersen is pre-arrival instructions which also are clearly spelled out later in the document. Recitals state the purpose and intent of the two parties so the definition would have to go in a definition section.
Chief Loken said he would be getting the MOU he submitted to his Attorney within the next couple days and expects these issues to be addressed further in his copy.
Jim Klock said he would review the Quality Assurance program at the next meeting to go over before the Governing Board meets again.
Jay will send the MOU to the County’s Corporate Council and at the next meeting all items being addressed between the three MOU’s can be discussed.
The concern of who will sign the MOU was brought up and it was decided that Corporate Council will make the final decision on this. Matt said the legal question is if you have three or four signatures, which has the right to cancel the agreement.
Chief Roeck conveyed the six points being covered and the next step is to bring everything together to go over at the next meeting. Jay said he would submit everything to Corporate Council but didn’t know if it would be available by the next meeting.
The committee decided to tentatively set a meeting date and confirm closer to the date.
NEXT MEETING DATE: Thursday, November 1, 2007 at 3:00 p.m.