Photos by Joshua McCoy/Daily News Gary Madison (above, left) and Robert Zilbert, both paramedics at The Medical Center, test the new AutoPulse Resuscitation System on Tuesday morning at the Ambulatory Services building.

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The Medical Center is continuing to make strides to improve its life-saving services and ensure high-quality service to patients in Warren and Logan counties, hospital officials said.

The hospital recently acquired the ZOLL AutoPulse cardiac support pump, which will help EMS personnel treat sudden cardiac arrest - the abrupt disruption of a functioning heart that cuts of blood flow to vital organs.

The Medical Center purchased the pump in May after two months of field trials. according to Randy Fathbruckner, director of Emergency Medical Services.

The hospital also invested $262,000 for three replacement ambulances in Warren and Logan counties.

“We're considered urban, but we're pretty rural and have a lot of rural places to cover,” Fathbruckner said.

The Medical Center's EMS Operations has a composite average response time of less than 9 minutes and 59 seconds in its 1,100-square-mile service area in Logan and Warren counties.

The Medical Center has two EMS stations in Bowling Green, on Industrial Drive and U.S. 31-W By-Pass, as well as on Main Street in Auburn and in the 1200 block of Nashville Street in Russellville.

Response times can be affected by weather, traffic congestion and other variables.

Despite public opinion that emergency services should arrive within minutes, rural areas generally have longer response times because of distance.

“There are issues people need to realize,” he said. “The EMS industry realizes that so many communities and areas are different in response time standards,” he said.

But there isn't a national standard.

“We constantly analyze (response times) to see how we can get better,” he said.

In the pursuit of better efficiency, Fathbruckner's management style mimics standards used in the manufacturing industry - “kaizen,” Japanese for continuous improvement and lean production.

Long gone are the days when EMS personnel would clock in at regulated shifts. Fathbruckner adjusts staffing in accordance with demand, using historical data to accommodate peak levels of service.

“We used to come in at 8 a.m. and get off at 8 p.m.,” he said. “Now the industry has changed.”

He said the industry is moving to a dynamic use of data information analysis in its 30-year history that he considers still in its infancy.

The EMS industry is changing rapidly in the same way fire and police operations have in the past century.

“We're trying to use that info to not make the same mistakes,” he said. “We're trying to grow and keep up with the times with the growth of Warren County and Logan County,” he said.

With that growth, The Medical Center renewed its commitment to quality EMS services with its reaccreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services, complying with national standards of excellence.

The reaccreditation makes The Medical Center the only hospital in Kentucky to have its EMS services accredited for the second time, and one of 102 accredited services in the nation.

The designation also gives the hospital the bragging rights to be the only private, non-government-funded service to receive the accreditation.

Fathbruckner said despite the considerable administrative investment a hospital must make to get EMS accreditation, the industry reinforces the need.

“It's just a level of excellence that we wanted to bring to the community,” he said. “We just wanted to offer the best we could possibly do.”

The reaccreditation is the second time Fathbruckner has overseen the process, which includes filling out several thousand pages of paperwork and going through a severe auditing from accrediting staff.

“It's a grueling process where the EMS service is put under a microscope,” he said.

Doris Thomas, vice president of parent company Commonwealth Health Corp., said the hospital is constantly reinvesting in new technology to serve patients better.

“What this means to the patient is improved quality of care,” she said. “With the addition of the AutoPulse support pump and the ambulances, The Medical Center is caring for people and improving the quality of life in the communities we serve.”

Thomas said in the next few years, the hospital will most likely add more new technologies.

“As long as technology continues to improve, The Medical Center will also, because The Medical Center constantly strives to improve the level of care we offer,” she said.