Beaufort County will be increasing paramedic-level service, thanks to a donation of $500,000 from Vidant Health Foundation.

On Wednesday, county officials met with Joel Butler, president of Vidant Health Foundation, to officially receive the grant at the Beaufort County Office of Emergency Management. The money is slated for expansion of paramedic-level service throughout the county, which many feel is the first line of defense in the changing face of rural health care.

“Of all the patients that were admitted to our hospital last year, they all had one thing in common — they could have used some sort of pre-hospital care. And we know that there are better outcomes when care for the patient begins as soon as possible at the home or at the scene,” said Vidant Beaufort Hospital President Harvey Case. “This donation from the Vidant Health Foundation will help provide paramedic-level services across Beaufort County meaning more intervention and advance lifesaving procedures can happen before patients ever get to the hospital.”

An ongoing study of Beaufort County’s paramedic coverage presented Monday at the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners meeting pointed to several gaps, namely in Bath and Blounts Creek. According to John Flemming, director of county EMS, a Quick Response Vehicle manned by a paramedic on the north side of the Pamlico River, an ambulance and paramedic working alongside the volunteer EMS squad at Bath, and Chocowinity EMS having increased response to Blounts Creek, will go a long way to fill those gaps as health care continues to evolve.

“One of the things we’ve been looking at is how to expand paramedic-level service to all residents of the county. We really want to expand it to everybody,” said Beaufort County Commissioner Ron Buzzeo. “The study gave us a good road map of what we have to do over the next several years. … We see this half a million as a step in that direction.”

Buzzeo said the information provided by emergency services consultants The Polaris Group led commissioners and Flemming to approach Vidant about the possibilities of a grant to move toward advanced EMS countywide, specifying that money would be used for equipment, as opposed to salaries.

Moving forward, the county will continue to expand service, potentially drawing on the $6.4 million trust fund that will revert back to the county with the dissolution of the Beaufort County Regional Health Systems Board, Buzzeo said. The hospital board oversaw the trust fund in order to take care of any lingering liabilities when Vidant took over the Washington hospital’s lease in 2011, but commissioners voted to disband the board at their July meeting.

Buzzeo said he sees the grant as the start of a partnership between the county and Vidant to meet the health care needs of all county residents, at a minimal cost to those residents.