Warren Countians should be alarmed over news about their local ambulance service – but not for the reasons put forth by a Louisville think tank and the state’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

That think tank, the Pegasus Institute, produced a report on Kentucky’s Certificate of Need regulations and their impact on ambulance care that seemed to take direct aim at Warren County.

The report’s conclusion that Warren County is underserved by current provider Med Center EMS and that the county is facing a “public health crisis” is used as justification by the CHFS for issuing an emergency administrative regulation that clears the way for a new ambulance provider.

Bowling Green’s TriStar Greenview Regional Hospital, long a critic of Med Center EMS, was quick to step through the hole in the state Certificate of Need process created by the emergency regulation. The day after the emergency reg essentially shifted the burden of proof from new ambulance service applicants to those opposing the application, Greenview affiliate Southern Kentucky Ambulance Service had its CON application filed with the CHFS.

Talk about quick response times.

Based on information presented by Pegasus and the CHFS, Greenview’s lightning-fast action could be seen as simply intended to solve an urgent problem in the county’s ambulance service.

Problem is, Pegasus and the CHFS seem to have come up with a solution that is in search of a problem.

Had Pegasus researchers gone to the trouble of talking to the county government officials who are responsible for seeing that ambulance service is provided, they may have reached a different conclusion.

Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon has said that he didn’t hear from Greenview or CHFS and wasn’t aware of the emergency regulation until after it had been issued.

As for the Pegasus Institute’s conclusion that Warren County is facing a crisis in its ambulance service, Buchanon said: “I know of no public health crisis or pressing need that warrants another ambulance provider.”

Buchanon and other members of the county fiscal court questioned the wisdom of the CHFS emergency regulation during the latest fiscal court meeting and were quick to point out that the arrangement with Med Center EMS that has been in place for nearly 40 years has served the county well.

Before Med Center EMS stepped up in 1980 to assume all costs of providing ambulance service, county taxpayers were on the hook for a service that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

Buchanon said Warren County’s arrangement with Med Center EMS is “what other Kentucky counties wish they had,” and he claims to have “never received a single complaint” about the ambulance service.

But you don’t have to take the judge-executive’s word for it. While the Pegasus report used statistics on emergency room wait times and the number of ambulance providers per capita to make its case, it ignored some pertinent facts about Med Center EMS.

With an average response time of 7 minutes, 21 seconds, Warren County’s lone ambulance provider beats the national average cited by Pegasus. Med Center EMS has earned numerous awards for the quality of its service, including the EMS Gold Award from the American Heart Association. It is one of three EMS services in Kentucky accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services.

Warren County’s ambulance provider has grown with the county and now has 13 vehicles and about 100 employees operating out of a new 28,000-square-foot headquarters on Bowling Green’s Third Avenue.

That such facts were either ignored or not factored into the Pegasus conclusions erodes the credibility of the think tank’s report. But that’s not all. As Med Center Health officials were quick to point out, the report contains factual errors, even missing the mark on the number of ambulance providers in Logan County.

We can only speculate on the Pegasus Institute’s motivation for producing a shoddy report whose only purpose seems to be to single out Warren County as underserved by its ambulance provider. We do know that such a spurious report should not be used by the state as justification for disrupting what has proven to be a high-quality ambulance service that is operated without cost to taxpayers.

It’s unfortunate that CHFS officials would not meet with Buchanon and Med Center Health representatives to hear information that could have demonstrated that the emergency regulation was based on incomplete information.

Now, regrettably, Med Center Health has taken the extreme step of filing a lawsuit in Franklin County Circuit Court to stop the emergency regulation.

Med Center Health Executive Vice President Wade Stone has called the lawsuit a “last resort.” We regret that this disagreement between two hospitals that have served our county well for decades has led to litigation, and we hope that a quick resolution can be found.