Hawaii

Hawaii Department of Health awards 2 contracts to AMR

Published

2 years ago

June 3, 2024

Press Room

Hawaii Department of Health awards 2 contracts to AMR

By Leila Fujimori
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser

HONOLULU — AMR has provided emergency ambulance services for Maui and Kauai for 44 years.

The Department of Health announced Friday it has awarded two four-year contracts for emergency ground ambulance service for Maui and Kauai to International Life Support, dba American Medical Response, or AMR.

AMR had been a contractor for both counties for 44 years before controversy arose in 2023 when Falck Northwest Corp., a multinational company based in Denmark, was selected.

DOH issued the Notices of Awards Thursday after required competitive procurements.

The new contracts will begin Jan. 1, 2025, and end Dec. 31, 2028, and will ensure every district has an ambulance staffed with a paramedic and a second responder who is at least an emergency medical technician, commonly called an EMT, which are the current qualifications and level of staffing.

The Maui contract provides for a second ambulance on Molokai.

The value of the Kauai contract is $38 million and $74 million for Maui County, which includes Lanai, Molokai and Maui.

They will “add requirements for a quality assurance coordinator and a pediatric emergency care coordinator, among other improvements in quality and performance.”

In 2023, DOH awarded Falck a three-and-a-half year, $59 million contract for Maui and a $32 million contract for Kauai. They were to run from Dec. 28 through June 30, 2027.

After hearing concerns raised about the Falck contracts, DOH on Oct. 23 canceled the request for proposals for Comprehensive Emergency Medical Services for 911 Ground Ambulance Transport for the two counties.

DOH on April 15 announced new RFPs for Emergency Medical Services Injury Prevention Systems for Maui and Kauai counties.

“While it was never the intent of DOH to reduce the qualifications of emergency responders, the previous RFP did not make this entirely clear,” state Health Director Kenneth S. Fink said in an April 15 news release. “The new RFPs clearly require that every district will have an ambulance staffed with a paramedic and a second responder who is at least an EMT.

Troy Hagen, chief commercial officer for Falck USA, said in a written statement Friday: “We are disappointed that Falck was not selected by the Department of Health, who found us more qualified than the incumbent to provide emergency medical services to Maui and Kauai counties just last year before canceling the request for proposals in response to a challenge.

“We are carefully reviewing our options and continue to stand ready to serve. As a foundation-owned healthcare provider, Falck would bring a fresh perspective, unmatched financial stability, reliable services developed around global best practices, and a deep commitment to delivering the highest quality care to the communities we serve.”

The Maui and Kauai paramedics associations had concerns about lower levels of care from the contracts issued in the previous bidding. They opposed lowering a standard of care that currently offers at least one highly trained paramedic, who could provide necessary advanced life support with all the needed equipment. Paramedics are more highly trained than EMTs and can insert breathing tubes into patients with respiratory failure, use electrocardiograms and insert IVs to administer medications.

The unions said they were most concerned about dropping a required Advanced Life Support unit for every unit.

The Maui County Council had also expressed concern over the loss of AMR. Council Chair Alice Lee wrote in a resolution in September that AMR had “performed very well for the past 44 years, as they demonstrated in their response to the wildfires. They know our community and our needs. We do not want services to be cut, nor do we want a contractor who has under-performed in other communities.”

AMR Regional Director Speedy Bailey said in September he was stunned with the selection of Falck over AMR because AMR had a proven track record while Falck had a history of response-time penalties and compliance issues.

In San Diego , Falck’s response-time failures due to persistent staffing shortages had been reported in the local media. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported the company was fined $1.2 million for failing to meet response-time goals in 2022.

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Hawaii

Hawaii suffers first defeat of the season against Loyola Chicago | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Published

4 hours ago

January 10, 2026

Press Room

Hawaii suffers first defeat of the season against Loyola Chicago | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

The second-ranked Hawaii men’s volleyball team expected a different Loyola Chicago team to show up Friday night in the rematch of Thursday’s 94-minute sweep by UH.

They were certainly correct in that assessment.

Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said flatly the Ramblers were better after No. 7 Loyola Chicago handed Hawaii its first home loss in January in two years in a 25-23, 25-22, 24-26, 29-27 win before a season-high crowd of 5,811 at Bankoh Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.

Aleksandar Sosa put down a match-high 19 kills and setter Ryan McElligott set the tone with four of his five aces in the first set for Loyola Chicago (1-1), which out-served and out-blocked the Rainbow Warriors.

“I thought they touched a lot of balls on the block and those first two sets, the first set, we had three or four balls back on our side to score some points and we didn’t,” Wade said. “We kind of screwed it up. We weren’t quite as crisp and efficient and against a good team, we let them hang around and they come back and make some plays late.”

Hawaii looked done for the night trailing 20-13 when it mounted a furious comeback in the third set to avoid a sweep.

Loyola Chicago had five match points in the fourth set and finally put the contest away with a double block of Ofeck Hazan to complete the upset.

“I think they served way better and we really struggled passing their serve,” said Hazan, who started in place of Trevell Jordan in the middle. “They were more creative out of system. (Thursday) they just hit into our block and today they just found the touches or just played better.”

Louis Sakanoko led Hawaii with 18 kills and set a career high with 12 digs, and Kristian Titriyski added 16 kills before sitting out the fourth set. UH hit .254 for the match and had six aces to the Ramblers’ eight. Loyola Chicago hd 15.5 blocks to Hawaii’s 10.5.

“We weren’t clicking on all cylinders and I’m not trying to use this as an excuse, but (setter) Tread (Rosenthal) didn’t practice all week. He had a back that tightened up,” Wade said. “Trevell’s back tightened up and I thought Ofeck played pretty well and he gave us a nice spark, but you’re just a little off rhythm there. Kristian was kind of grabbing his back late and obviously we made the decision to go with Kainoa (Wade) to give us a spark and he gave us that.”

Kainoa Wade and Sakanoko each served three straight points for UH in the third set after it fell behind 20-13 and Finn Kearney came off the bench to serve the final two points that ended in blocks to get UH back in the game.

Hawaii hit just .171 in the fourth and made eight service errors. It had 20 serving errors for the match and served in at less than 80%.

“Obviously it’s a work in progress. We’re in game four of the year,” Kainoa Wade said. “We got a lot of work to do, but we’ve got to trust what we know. We’ve served a lot of balls in our lives, all of us, so we know we can go on runs and make plays.”

The Ramblers gave Hawaii a taste of its own medicine in the opening set with McElligott building a strong poker hand of aces during an 8-0 run during which Charlie Wade used both timeouts.

McElligott had three aces after Jake Read’s kill put him behind the service line, and despite two Hawaii timeouts and the media timeout, he poured it on until UH caught a break with a Loyola Chicago net violation on an overpass that almost certainly would have been a Ramblers point.

Sakanoko followed with back-to-back kills, including a deep tip into the far corner over a triple block that prompted Loyola Chicago to call timeout leading 17-14.

Hawaii extended the run to 5-0 after Titriyski put down a kill following a long rally to pull UH within a point.

The Rainbow Warriors got back to even at 22-all on Kainoa Wade’s ace as a serving sub. The set was tied once more until a Rosenthal service error and a McElligott ace for his fourth of the set handed UH its first set loss of the season.

Rosenthal wasn’t able to spin serve all night due to the back injury.

Neither team separated by more than a point in the second set until Justin Todd had two aces during a 4-0 UH run to put the ‘Bows ahead 13-10.

Hawaii led 21-19 when the Ramblers scored six of the next seven points to go up two sets to none.

UH’s only point during the final 6-1 run came on a Loyola Chicago service error. The Ramblers scored three of their points on errors by UH and another on their sixth ace of the match.

The Rainbow Warriors will have four days off before playing four matches in three days next week.

Hawaii has doubleheaders against Roberts Wesleyan and Rockhurst in reverse order on Wednesday and Friday.

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Hawaii

2026 Sony Open field is announced. See who’s playing in Hawaii

Published

16 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

2026 Sony Open field is announced. See who’s playing in Hawaii

The Sony Open in Hawaii has the honors of being the kickoff event to the 2026 PGA Tour season after the cancellation of The Sentry at Kapalua this season.

Instead of Maui, the Tour debuts in Honolulu on the island of Oahu, Jan. 15-18, at the Seth Raynor-designed Waialae Country Club, where Nick Taylor prevailed in a playoff over Nico Echavarria last year.

Among the changes this season is the field size, which was reduced from 144 to 120, and, there is no longer is a Monday qualifier offering four spots. Will that help with pace of play? Stay tuned.

The field includes the following notables in addition to Taylor and Echavarria: Daniel Berger, Keegan Bradley, Michael Brennan, Corey Conners, Tony Finau, Chris Gotterup, Brian Harman, Russell Henley, Billy Horschel, Robert MacIntyre, Collin Morikawa, Adam Scott, Jordan Spieth, Sahith Theegala, Gary Woodland and 62-year-old Vijay Singh.

Here’s the full field for the Sony Open, which will be live on Golf Channel all four days as well as NBC with early-round coverage on Saturday and Sunday.

This year’s Sony purse is $9.1 million and the winner also will receive 500 FedEx Cup points.

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