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October 28, 2020, Hamilton, Texas: Today, Hamilton County Hospital District approved an Interlocal Agreement to provide emergency medical services (EMS) to Llano County, Texas. The Agreement begins January 1, 2021, and is an initial five (5) year contract with two five (5) year automatic renewal periods. Hamilton EMS will provide four (4) full-time Mobile Intensive Care Unit (MICU) ambulances based at strategic locations within Llano County. Baylor Scott & White has provided both Llano hospital management and emergency medical services to Llano County, since January 2010. Those agreements expire at year end and Baylor Scott & White has elected not to renew these services.
Hamilton County Hospital District provides EMS to Hamilton, Mills, and San Saba counties. The addition of Llano County increases the EMS service area to four (4) contiguous counties. This new total service area for Hamilton EMS spans nearly 4,000 square miles across the Hill Country and serves over 41,000 Texans with comprehensive high-quality prehospital emergency medical care. To meet these challenges, Hamilton EMS will increase full-time personnel to approximately 70 Paramedics and EMTs staffing ten (10) full-time ambulances in Hico, Hamilton, Goldthwaite, San Saba, Llano, Lake Buchanan, and Kingsland.
The Director of Hamilton EMS Patrick Cobb said, “We are excited about the opportunities expanding our EMS footprint brings to the system, the Hospital District, and to Llano County. Our EMS personnel continue to improve the delivery of rural emergency medical care. EMS far outside of large urban areas presents many challenges to not only our providers but to our customers who are sick or injured. Thankfully, through collaboration with EMS educational partners in the region; and great support from the District, Hamilton EMS has achieved a high degree of success in providing rural EMS healthcare.”
Grady Hooper, CEO of Hamilton Healthcare stated, “Delivering quality rural healthcare of any kind is challenging in the best of circumstances. The COVID Pandemic has stopped growth in many healthcare systems across the state and in some cases, hospitals and EMS providers have had to close their doors leaving communities with no healthcare. Without our EMS system being designated the first and only Critical Access ambulance provider in Texas by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid earlier this year, growing our system and providing these lifesaving services to our customers would be very difficult. We are fortunate to have the financial stability to deliver high quality medical care.”
