Tim Grice, the assistant director of Jackson County EMS, listens to gentle music on a gloomy Friday afternoon. It’s calm in his office — he’s taking the day as it comes and leaving his remaining tasks for Monday. 

Jackson County is one of the fastest-growing counties in the country. Grice said the county’s growing population makes it easy to justify new initiatives that increase the level of care his team can provide, while also increasing their scope of work to accommodate the influx of citizens.

 Why It’s Newsworthy: Jackson County EMS adjusts to the county’s growing population by adding a ninth ambulance while struggling with staffing insufficiency and growing demand from the community.  

“From a growth aspect, it’s a good thing,” Grice said. “But I don’t know how you keep up with everyone’s demands.”

More People, More Ambulances

Jackson County EMS’s request for a ninth ambulance was approved in the county’s 2025 FY budget, and the county’s health insurance funding increased by 15%. The new ambulance will be a 12-hour service vehicle for Commerce. 

Fifteen percent of Jackson County adults didn’t have health insurance in 2023, 5% more than the national average. Gov. Brian Kemp’s February opposition to Medicaid expansion could pose a threat to uninsured adults in rural Georgia. 

Because Jackson County EMS participated in a 2020 prehospital blood pilot program, each team member has been trained to handle and administer blood in an ambulance en route to a hospital. This post-licensure training allows EMS facilities to bill for a higher rate when conducting inter-facility transport.

However, that doesn’t apply to Grice’s team. Because Jackson County’s only hospital closed in 2020, they’re not eligible to charge higher rates. 

Instead, the county’s EMS team transports patients to hospitals at least 20 miles away, including Piedmont Athens Regional and St. Mary’s Health Care System in Athens.  

Why Commerce?

I-85 cuts through the north part of the county through Braselton, the western part of the county, to Commerce in the northeast sector. Its widening and subsequent construction have hindered response times and access to areas for the county’s EMS.

Commerce’s unit M1 recently received a blood kit, the first kit not located at the EMS headquarters in Jefferson. 

“[M1] is one of the furthest reaches of the county from headquarters,” Grice said.

The Commerce area has become as busy almost as the Jefferson area, but we don’t have the coverage on ambulances to support it,” Grice said.

The county’s EMS team is spoiled, according to Grice, with support from the county’s officials and citizens to seek out beneficial initiatives for their community. 

“We have quite a bit of leeway to go out and search for things that are going to make a difference clinically,” Grice said. 

Helen Sorme is a senior majoring in journalism and sociology with a news literacy certificate.