All Children's Hospital

In February 1997, Sunstar entered into an agreement with All Children's Hospital (ACH) to provide an EMT to operate ACH ambulances and to maintain ACH ambulances in our fleet department. Prior to this arrangement, ACH had several old ambulances that were unreliable. ACH attempted to employ EMTs to operate these vehicles, but vehicle difficulties soon led ACH to exclusively use Sunstar to transport their patient care teams throughout West Florida. The ACH transports were frequently time critical and often reduced the number of Sunstar units on duty in Pinellas County. ACH also had difficulty fitting three or four person teams safely in a standard Sunstar paramedic ambulance.

Sunstar collaborated with ACH, to determine that these issues could be resolved by ACH buying two new units, leasing them to Sunstar, and using Sunstar employees to drive their ambulances. In exchange for this arrangement, ACH would pay Sunstar a flat fee to provide two EMTs 24 hours a day, preventive maintenance on ACH units, and any other required vehicle maintenance.

Sunstar desired to enter into this arrangement for several reasons. First, a customer of ours was in need of transport services. As the transport professionals, Sunstar became involved to meet customer needs with this unique arrangement. Second, this was an excellent opportunity for EMTs to develop another career path and further their education. ACH was willing, even eager, to allow our EMTs to assist in the ER, Intensive Care Unit, and Cardiac Catheterzation Lab when not performing transport duties. This arrangement was truly win-win for all involved.

Currently, Sunstar provides two EMTs at ACH twelve hours per day, Monday through Saturday. During the night shift and on Sunday, Sunstar provides two EMTs on call who can respond to ACH within thirty minutes.

We prepare monthly reports for ACH. We work with their Transport Coordinator, to verify monthly transports and fleet expenses. In addition, we perform compliance summaries for review by ACH and Sunstar. We also participate in regular meetings with ACH staff to address any concerns they have concerning our service and to develop and adjust policies to meet the needs of both agencies.