By Hemmy So
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
 
DEERFIELD, Fla. — Persistent software glitches have left the Deerfield Beach Fire Rescue Department unable to analyze patient care data and efficiently produce state-mandated performance reports, fire officials say.

Fire officials have become so upset with the system, called LifeNet EMS Support, they are withholding more than $20,000 in payments to the software provider, Medusa Medical Technologies Inc.

"We haven't been very happy with the software," said Chad Brocato, operations division chief. "It does some minimal amount of data collection, but what we anticipated and what we contracted out to do is not necessarily what the software is doing."

LifeNet is a complex software program that gathers data from firefighters and emergency medical technicians both in-house and out in the field. It collects information such as types of emergency calls and treatments administered to patients. In addition to giving information needed to complete mandatory state reports, the program should allow fire officials to analyze the department's performance to ensure quality assurance, Brocato said.

But that LifeNet component hasn't worked since it was installed in January, officials said. "What we didn't find reasonable, the problems that we found, were that it takes them an inordinate amount of time to fix, and they're not very ready and willing to help," said Brocato, referring to Medusa Medical Technologies.

Fire officials became so frustrated at what they considered inadequate customer service that Fire Chief Tony Stravino told city commissioners at a budget workshop in August that he had wanted to look into suing the software provider. More recently, Stravino said he thought the issues would be resolved soon, as the company had become more attentive to the Fire Department's software issues.

Company representatives denied failing to provide adequate customer service to the Fire Department, though they admitted the software has had problems.

"We've been working with them throughout the last couple months or so to make sure the numbers match up and those sorts of things," said Oliver Nemeskeri, vice president of solution delivery. "For the most part, it's been fine tuning with them. We hadn't heard from them for months ... until they started using this element of the software."

Both parties hope problems are fixed by the end of this month.

"They're realizing that it's really not [the firefighters'] fault," said Eddie Martinez, the city's information systems expert dedicated to this project. "It's coming to a resolution."

Copyright 2007 South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News