February 1, 2024 - Savvik Foundation funded research is in the news!

Check out what we've been up to since we formed in 2000! Watch our video by clicking here.

      Grant Opportunity      

The Savvik Foundation and the American Ambulance Association have launched a grant program available to Savvik member ambulance services who are preparing to comply with the Cost Data Collection program through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  Through Savvik Member purchases under contracts, the Savvik Foundation was able to fund grant dollars through the American Ambulance Association (AAA).  

Through this grant, services will be eligible to receive a year gold level subscription to AAA's Ambulance Cost Education program which includes access to experts on cost collection, access to AMBER software and free registration to Webinars and Regional Workshops.  To apply visit www.ambulancereports.org and fill out the online grant application at https://ambulance.org/2020/01/14/savvik-cost-collection-grant-application/.

AAA Ambulance Cost Education Subscription Includes:

• Amber™ cost collection software (unlimited NPIs)
• Ticketing system to ask questions of our experts
• Google Group/Peer-to-Peer Forum
• 12 Deep Dive Webinars
• Pre-con at the AAA Annual Conference & Trade Show
• Regional Workshops (2 seats, sessions across the country)
• Chart of Accounts
• Newsletter
• Podcasts
• Amber Encyclopedia™
• Webinar: Fundamentals of Revenue
• Webinar: Fundamentals of Cost Allocation
• AAA Accounting Manual

This Savvik Foundation grant is made possible by purchases made through Savvik Buying Group contracts.

https://ambulance.org/2020/01/14/savvik-cost-collection-grant-application/ 

What is the average number of volunteer EMTs needed to adequately provide ambulance service to 5,000 people over 500 square miles? How does that compare to how many volunteers you have?

Our partner, the Center for Leadership, Innovation and Research in EMS, has developed benchmarks definitions for the ambulance industry. We are already beginning to identify some best-practices based on the limited information in our data repository.

 

 

What is the cost per mile for ambulance vehicle maintenance in an urban environment using employed mechanics in a fleet larger than 10? Using the local car dealer? Using a specialty fleet maintenance vendor?

 

If an ambulance service the same size as yours was able to bill twice as many calls with half the staff, would you be interested in how they did it? Unit Hour Utilization can be an effective tool for measuring productivity in urban markets, how do you measure rural productivity?

We are currently seeking participants to contribute their data to our data set, and in the process test our definitions.

 

How many volunteer ambulance services pay volunteers some amount of money per hour while on-call? A stipend per run? What amounts are they paying?

All of the current participants are full-time providers. None of them are hospital providers. We are seeking to add volunteer and hospital-based agencies into our data pool.

If you are interested in participating in this process, email us.

EMS Outcomes

The Savvik Foundation and 5 partners sponsored the EMS industry's national consensus meetings on outcome indicators.

We cosponsored Six Sigma for EMS & Fire quality improvement training in Minnesota with the National EMS Management Association, HealthAnalytics, and North Carolina University.

We have collaborated with a number of state and national organizations encouraging CMS to include EMS providers in the Scope of Work for CMS Quality Improvement Organizations.

We participated in an Amicus Brief filing with the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

We collaborated with the Minnesota Rural Health Association, Minnesota Rural Partners, the American Heart Association and the Minnesota Ambulance Association in delivering comments to the federal HHS initiative on rural communities.

The Savvik Foundation has analyzed the impact of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act on EMS agencies. We issued a white paper:
"Protecting America’s Final Health Care Safety Net: Emergency Medical Services"

To learn more, click on the White Paper tab at the top of this page.