Today, Adams County supervisors expect to hear presentations from three local ambulance providers each of whom want to win the franchise for emergency response calls in the county.

Currently, emergency calls are rotated to providers.

County leaders wisely are seeking to understand how to improve response times after a resident in a rural part of the county had to wait 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive last year.

Supervisors have suggested publicly Adams County is the only county in the state to handle emergency calls in rotation, rather than through an exclusive contract.

Normally, competition is a good thing, but in emergency response situations, that may not be the case. Decades ago, large cities had different fire crews that covered different parts of the city. It didn’t take long to realize the power of consolidating forces under a unified command. The change allowed more and better resources to be put where needed most.

The same appears true in ambulance service, too.

While we understand that emotions will likely run high and feelings may be hurt in the process, what the supervisors are trying to do makes sense and hopefully will save lives.

Today’s discussion needs to focus not on politics or which company is more local or how any change may affect jobs, but mostly focus on what options improve the speed of response and thus potentially save more lives.