Mutual Aid Ambulance Service

A Greensburg–area mom learned that her 11 children had been exposed to lead from peeling paint on their home radiator. But there was no way she could transport her large family to the doctor’s office for blood tests to monitor the dangerous situation.

So Kimberly Grimm and Elizabeth McMaster, two employees of the Mutual Aid Ambulance Service in Greensburg, came to their house to take the blood samples. The mother was relieved that the two community–healthcare technicians solved her transportation dilemma, and also that they planned to follow up.

The home visit was part of the ambulance company’s Community Healthcare Initiative. The Richard King Mellon Foundation in 2023 awarded a $400,000 grant to Mutual Aid Ambulance Service to expand the initiative throughout its coverage area in Westmoreland and Fayette counties. The technicians go from house to house in unmarked cars instead of ambulances.

The nonprofit has contracted with Highmark Health and is negotiating contracts with other health–insurance companies to reach out to people who make frequent hospital visits. The initiative will bring much–needed revenue to Mutual Aid Ambulance Service while cutting down on preventable, high–cost trips to the hospital.

“Patients get discharged and they go back to the hospital. It’s a constant revolving door of medicine,” said Gene Komondor, Chief Executive Officer of the ambulance service. “We try to direct them to a path of independence and self–reliance.” The service has helped older residents who have to choose between heat and food by referring them to a low–income heat–subsidy program. Similarly, if a person keeps falling, they might survey the home and show how to mitigate falling hazards, such as area rugs with fraying edges.

Recently, two community–healthcare technicians helped a man in his 30s who had a serious medical condition but was agoraphobic and refused to leave his house. They built a rapport and accompanied him to the doctor so he could get the care he needed.

McMaster, the community–healthcare technician, was a paramedic for nine years but finds her new role doing home visits to be more rewarding. Riding in the ambulance, “I would go to the same addresses all the time. I got frustrated with no solutions. This is finding a solution.”

Komondor said the program also offers a solution to rural ambulance services, which are struggling with inflation and the high cost of wear and tear on vehicles, in a company that makes 100 to 120 runs a day.

The Richard King Mellon Foundation also awarded Mutual Aid Ambulance Service a $600,000 grant to purchase four new ambulances, costing $132,000 each, and new computers and software.

Komondor said ambulance services also are under financial strain because of the difficulty of getting reimbursed for services. Unlike a doctor’s office that won’t see a patient unless they have insurance, the paramedic who responds to a car crash or a heart attack can’t ask about payment. Their focus instead must be on urgent questions such as, “Can you breathe?”

There’s also a shortage of paramedics, who suffer burnout and career stress. “No one ever calls 9–1–1 because they are having a good day,” he said.

Mutual Aid Ambulance has hired employees through its education and training center. Komondor—who worked as an EMT, started his own ambulance company and taught emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh—said he can teach anyone the technical skills, but the real mark of an EMT is someone who cares.

“The opportunity to take care of somebody who, for whatever reason, is not able to take care of themselves, either because of illness or injury— that’s one of the greatest privileges that any of us will ever have.”