2 Community Colleges Vie for County Contract on Paramedic Training

Training of Orange County’s paramedics, which now takes place at Daniel Freeman Hospital in Los Angeles, will shift next year to a community college in Orange County.

But which community college won’t be known until September, said Betty O’Rourke, program director of Orange County’s Emergency Medical Services.

Two community college districts, Rancho Santiago in Santa Ana and Saddleback in Mission Viejo, are competing for a proposed training contract with EMS.

Both Rancho Santiago and Saddleback propose to expand their curricula to include a major for future emergency medical technicians and paramedics.

About 360 paramedics work in Orange County for the county or cities, O’Rourke said. About 36 new or replacement paramedics are needed every year.

For the last three years, training of new Orange County paramedics and recertification training of current paramedics have been handled by Daniel Freeman Hospital. In the 10 years before that, UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange handled the training, O’Rourke said.

Minimal Costs Urged

This year EMS asked community college districts and hospitals to submit proposals for the training. It asked “that the provider be as self-sufficient as possible,” O’Rourke said, meaning “no cost to county government.”

O’Rourke said county government, which this year is paying $230,000 to Daniel Freeman Hospital for paramedic training, may be able to save that much each year if a new training source can do the job without county funds.

Because community colleges receive state funds for each student enrolled, they may be able to offer the training courses profitably without a county stipend, O’Rourke said.

“We don’t know just yet whether the county would need to pay any training money under the two proposals we’ve received from the community college districts,” she said. “We hope we can save as much money as possible.”

Possibly because the requests stressed minimal costs to the county, no hospitals submitted proposals this year by Monday’s deadline, O’Rourke said.

The proposals from Rancho Santiago and Saddleback will be evaluated by an EMS panel of medical experts, educators and firefighter representatives, she said. That panel’s recommendation will then go to the Orange County Board of Supervisors, which will make the final decision.

Training Next Summer

“We’ll probably have a selection made in September, and the training will start next summer, when our contract ends with Daniel Freeman Hospital,” O’Rourke said.

EMS is pleased with the proposals, she said. “We know good training is available from community colleges, because in other parts of the state it’s the community colleges that train the paramedics.”

Rancho Santiago College, formerly called Santa Ana College, and Saddleback College have nurse-training and other health-related programs.

Donna Picard, dean of applied arts and sciences at Rancho Santiago College, said Tuesday that the college has long given credits to students taking emergency medical technician training at UCI Medical Center or at Daniel Freeman Hospital. She also noted that it has a Fire Academy to train firefighters.

“Because of the close association of fire services and paramedics, we think we’d have a very good program,” she said.

‘Totally Committed’

At Saddleback College, Dixie Bullock, dean of health sciences and human services, said: “We’re totally committed in seeking this (paramedic training program). We think we offer excellent courses in all our health programs.”

She added that Saddleback has for many years offered credit courses for preliminary paramedic training.

Both Picard and Bullock said the community college that receives the county contract is likely to be the only one to expand its courses in paramedic training.

“This is the sort of thing where one college could fill the county’s need,” Picard said.