AN ORDINANCE relating to a Mobile Integrated Health pilot; amending Ordinance 125724, which adopted the 2019 budget; changing appropriations to various departments and budget control levels; lifting a proviso; and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts.
The bill passed and chair of the Senate. Please read the first agenda item. The Report of the Gender Equity Safe Communities New Americans in Education Committee Agenda Item one Capsule 119509 relating to a mobile integrated health pilot. Many Ordinance 125 724, which adopted the 2018 budget, changing appropriations to various departments and budget control levels, lifting a proviso in red flag confirming search and paradoxically recommends the bill passed as amended. Thank you, Castro and Gonzalez. Thank you. Council president. I'm going to go ahead and describe the bill that full council will consider today. And then I will hand it over to Councilmember Bagshaw, who is the prime sponsor of this effort. Council Bill 119509 amends the 2019 adopted budget by lifting a proviso on $475,000 held in finance general and appropriating those funds to the Seattle Fire Department for the purpose of implementing the Mobile Integrated Health Unit Pilot Program. These funds were originally proviso and held in Finance General Reserve in accordance with Green Sheet 13. Dash 40. Dash eight. Dash three. This green. She was sponsored by Councilmember Bagshaw, who has been advocating for the piloting of this program for several years. And for that we really want to thank her. Councilmember Bagshaw Green. She directed the executive to develop and report back to the Council on the implementation plan for this proposed pilot program. And last week, on May 8th, my committee received a briefing on that proposed plan. This council bill allows the Seattle Fire Department to operationalize the Mobile Integrated Health Unit by the third quarter of this year, 2019. The unit will be comprised of two firefighter EMTs and one social worker or mental health professional. The unit will operate primarily in the urban core and is intended to reduce the low acuity call volume and preserve it preserve at 911 services while better meeting the needs of 911 callers. The executive and the Seattle Fire Department studied similar models in other jurisdictions, both locally and nationally, and coordinated with the Seattle Police Department, the Human Services Department, and the Seattle King County Public Health Agency in developing the implementation plan for this pilot program. The bill was amended in my committee to add additional layers to data collection and reporting requirements. The base bill came already with requirements around data collection, evaluation and reporting. I advance through committee a particular amendment that would ensure that the Seattle Fire Department, as part of the overall evaluation, would develop evaluate additional measures that might help the city determine if the pilot program, as we take it to scale, should be modified to include not supplant firefighters and EMTs or the social workers or behavioral health professionals , but to add to those services by including a registered nurse, nurse practitioner or physician's assistant who could provide on site immediate care in the event that that is needed. These measures would evaluate whether a low acuity patient could have benefited from in-field care, as I just mentioned, and treatment, including suturing of minor wounds, the prescribing of pain , relief medication and onsite psychosocial assessment. This in-field treatment model exists in L.A., as well as Kent Washington. And our central staff analyst Greg Doss has communicated with US jurisdictions regarding their operations, which is why I advanced that particular moment. It's a wait and see study, evaluate and see how and if the pilot program could be modified in the future. Again, not by replacing the firefighter EMTs and the social worker mental health professional that will already be on the unit. But to add to the suite of services that those individuals might already be providing, so that is the amended. Version of the bill that is in front of us for consideration at committee and with. I was really excited to have the committee unanimously recommend that the City Council adopt Council Bill 119509 as amended. Great concern, Bexar. Thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez. I really appreciated just what you had to say. Councilmember Herbold, I appreciated your write up. I saw the email that you had sent. And I really want to acknowledge Chief Scoggins and John Ehrenfeld from the downtown local offices of our Seattle Fire Department, and recognize what the mayor has done as well, pulling together not only the fire department, but police department, our Human Services Department, and also working closely with public health and, of course, with our budget office to make sure we stay within budget. But this is such an important step in the right direction, as Councilmember Gonzales has stated. We reach out to other cities, not just L.A., but Mesa, Arizona, Colorado Springs, Colorado, to to learn and our own Kent Washington have done projects like this. We know that the kinds of complaints that our firefighters routinely respond to are not the high acuity ones for which they have been trained, such as a fire or a traffic accident or the kinds of things where it requires fast action and quick decision making. Many of the complaints, in fact, I believe that the fire chief had said a good 40% of the responses that they're sent out to with ladder trucks, sometimes two ladder trucks, sometimes two ladder trucks, plus an ambulance, a medic, one plus police officers are really for people that have perhaps their minor injury or illness, like it's really more of a social issue. They're feeling cold or feeling lonely, they're feeling abandoned. They don't have the support around them that they need, but they certainly don't need 12 people responding to a911 call. So this pilot proposal, it's what we started off calling a more mobile integrated health unit. Now we're calling it Health One. I love that title because something we all can remember, it does build on national and regional examples, but it's also capitalizing on our fire department's core strengths with having immediate response, flexible decision making. They'll be adaptable on site. It's really a team based work, and it's going to provide improved patient experience for the individuals who are on our sidewalks and calling or inside a facility and needing help. But it also will provide some support for our fire department that they're not going to have to respond with eight people, and certainly the taxpayers are going to have an opportunity to see their money used wisely as well. So I think that this is a triple win. I'm very pleased that we've gotten there. I'm glad we had $475,000 that we put in the budget last year. But also we are coordinating with Ally Franklin in our community connections in Northgate. And I also want to acknowledge Sue McLaughlin McLaughlin and the work that her group is doing around healthier here. All this connects and I'm very thankful and appreciative of the amended language going forward. Thank you Casper and bake casserole and Gonzales. I think you. Council president and thank you Councilman Bagshaw for those remarks and sort of the broader framing besides the granular detail of the actual legislation. I failed to mention one small thing, which is that the proviso is on $475,000 in our budget. We have heard from the executive, both in committee and and in media reports that the total cost of this initial pilot project is actually $500,000. Again, only $475,000 is subject to a proviso in committee. Chief Scoggins mentioned to us that the delta of $25,000 is coming from surplus in the fire department, so there will not be a gap. And wanted to make sure that councilmembers understood that that that there is a disparity in terms of the 475 versus the $500,000 cost that has been estimated by the executive. But it's our understanding that that $25,000 difference will be achievable for the department without a huge inconvenience to them or the general fund. Very good. Any other questions or comments before we vote? Customer Herbold. Thank you. I just want to also put this. In an even broader concept context of resources for the fire department. Generally, the need to respond to emergency calls is a big driver of their budget, and historically best practices were that when they when the response is. As to individual units replaced 3500 a year, they would look at adding additional resources, whereas what we're seeing now is that individual units have four, five, six, 7000 annual responses for individual units. And this again, this this effort, I think, is within the context of trying to address that large volume of emergency responses that they're dealing with. Very good. Thanks for the comments. I think we're ready to proceed. Okay. No further comments. Please call the role on the passage of the bill. Gonzalez Herbal. Hi, Suarez. O'BRIEN All right. PACHECO All right. So on High President Harrell. High. Eight in favor and unopposed. Bill passed in show senate. Please read the next agenda.