Director of Emergency Services Jim Anderson asked county commissioners for money to purchase new software for EMS during the Bryan County Commission meeting Tuesday, Dec. 4.

Anderson said the software will bring the county up to date for handling EMS patient care reports.

"At present time, we do our patient care reports by hand. They’re turned into billing up here and all their input is done by hand, and then we send them to Brunswick. The state of Georgia hasn’t given us a definite date but has told us they will mandate doing them electronically," Anderson said.

The county approved Anderson’s request for the purchase from contingency funds once bids are in.

"We’ve been looking at several (programs) throughout the year," County Administrator Phil Jones said. "We should go ahead a do a formal bid on it, that way it could come back to the board in January for final decisions."

Jones said bids he’s heard of for the software have been broad, ranging anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000.

Anderson wants to buy the software from EMS Consultants so paramedics can type up reports on laptop computers inside ambulances and then send them electronically.

A representative from EMS Consultants said the program takes about one month to install, which includes custom-designing the software for the county’s needs and roughly one week of training the medics how to correctly use it.