The Riverside City Council approved changes to its ambulance ordinance in September 2013 to potentially allow for competition with inter-facility transports (IFTs) within the city of Riverside. After that meeting, four ambulance companies applied for permits to operate in Riverside. City of Riverside Fire Chief Mike Esparza went through the first application with CARE Ambulance and conducted interviews with Kaiser Permanente Riverside, Parkview Community Hospital Medical Center and Riverside Community Hospital.

Esparza recommended that the Riverside City Council approve the application of CARE Ambulance. That recommendation was taken up by the Public Safety Committee of the City Council. After much discussion, that committee forwarded the recommendation to the full council for a vote that should happen within the next 60 days. Presently, the three hospitals can only use AMR for IFTs.

Allowing hospitals to have a choice of ambulance provider will afford them to be able to choose a company that best meets their needs, provides competition to continue to receive the best service available, and gives hospitals an alternative if one company is too busy to make a transfer due at a needed time. Also, the addition of a second company will align with what hospitals in Riverside County already have – choices in providers for IFTs.

Contact: Dimitrios Alexiou

(951) 222-2284, dalexiou@hasc.org