EDITORIAL: Ambulance provider's performance raises serious questions

May 10--Santa Clara County residents should be asking serious questions about the quality of ambulance service being provided by Rural Metro in its first year and a half on the job. They can't expect county officials to volunteer the information.

The Mercury News' Karen de Sa reports that since taking over ambulance service, Rural Metro has violated its contract by repeatedly responding too slowly to emergencies and has paid more than $4.7 million in fines for lack of performance.

County Executive Jeff Smith said that the county has notified Rural Metro that it was in breach of contract after three serious violations. One more serious breach, Smith said, and the county will consider terminating the contract. But we know this only because we asked. It has not been discussed at public meetings, even though it's hard to imagine a service of greater importance.

Board President Ken Yeager says the county's Emergency Medical Services staff assured him that Rural Metro now has its house in order. The company submitted a "systems enhancement plan," and a spokesman says it doesn't plan on being out of compliance again. But since its last breach of contract in December, Rural Metro was fined $305,500 in January and $279,500 in February for such things as being late to emergency scenes and not having three ambulances ready to deploy, as required in the contract.

Rural Metro is required to have ambulances arrive within 12 minutes of

a call 90 percent of the time -- the industry standard. In the 10 years before it took over the contract, the previous provider, AMR, never failed to meet that standard until the final months, when its employees were moving to the new contractor.

Rural Metro first missed the target in July 2011 and then again in October and in January of 2012.

Another serious concern is Rural Metro's ability to respond to a multi-casualty disaster. On Feb. 7, in the letter informing Rural Metro that it was in breach of contract, the county demanded that the company adhere to its agreement to have "five Rural Metro ambulances and a Rural Metro supervisor to be available for immediate response should a strike team be activated and that no less than three Rural Metro ambulances are available at all times."

Failure to comply leaves communities more vulnerable to earthquakes and other disasters.

When Rural Metro was competing with AMR for this contract, we doubted its ability to provide the service it promised for its bid price and questioned what appeared to be less-than-transparent procedures on the county's part. Rural Metro and the county have blamed each other for problems.

According to county officials, all of this is either now perfectly OK -- or we are in big trouble. You decide whom to believe. We'll keep trying to get the real answer.

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