Jasper is one of 14 dispatch providers in the province that still needs to transition, and AHS has been directed by the health minister to complete the remaining transitions as soon as possible. The goal is to have dispatch consolidations complete by the end of December.
On Wednesday, May 8, Garland held the first meeting in Jasper about moving toward dispatch consolidation. Garland is executive director of EMS dispatch, Communications and Development at Alberta Health Services. Representatives from Parks (including dispatch supervisor Patrick Harvey), Associated Ambulance, the municipality, Seton Healthcare Centre and other members from Alberta Health Services attended the meeting.
“This is not a discussion about if or why, this is about how,” Garland told the stakeholders. “[AHS has] done a number of these [transitions] and gained a lot of experience of how the process can work to benefit the community and meet the objective of AHS.”
AHS works with their stakeholders through a template charter that can be customized for each community. Jill Thordarson, director of North Communications Centre (NCC) for AHS, will lead stakeholders through developing the charter for Jasper.
In order to outline the charter, one of the required discussions is deciding what constitutes a backcountry rescue, so Peace River dispatchers will be in the loop, said Thordarson.
After the transition, Harvey will notify Peace River dispatch to send an ambulance instead of dispatching one himself, like he does now. Parks dispatch is still fielding calls, so if a backcountry rescue is needed, the call will not even go to Peace River, said Garland.
If an ambulance is required, Parks dispatch can notify Peace River dispatch to send one.
Though ambulance dispatch will go through Peace River, if stakeholders still want Harvey to speak with EMS crews once the switch happens, that is a possibility, said Garland. It just needs to be captured in the charter.
Building a consolidated dispatch model means that an emergency communications officer who answers 911 emergency calls for ambulances can see all the province’s EMS resources on a computer screen. This is beneficial in many ways.
“If we’re in Edmonton and we’re empty, we can be tasked to do a call in the city of Edmonton,” said Paul Kennedy, director of operations for Associated Ambulance. “Typically if we’re on our way back from a call, we might get tasked to a call—because we’re only five minutes away from someone who’s not breathing, we’re going to go.”
This doesn’t mean that a Jasper ambulance will be tied up in the city all day taking calls, it just means that the closest available EMS resource will respond to a call first, and then other, most likely local, resources will be sent after. Then the Jasper ambulance can continue back home.
Garland reiterated that ensuring every community has ambulance coverage is his job. “The operational answer [is] there’s about 12 different solutions we can deploy to cover the community. It’s my responsibility to make sure that those resources are available to you.”
The provincial model also allows ambulances in other communities to cross-cover, if needed. If a Jasper ambulance is tied up in another community, one can be sent from Hinton.
Inter-facility transfers (IFTs) will also occupy less transport time for individual ambulances. The NCC has already been utilizing this model for about four years, said Thordarson.
Several different ambulances are used to transport rural patients long distances. This means that ambulances are back in their communities quicker, having taken a four-hour trip instead of 12.
“By being able to see all the resources, you use the resources better and you have more time in your own communities with your local resources,” said Kennedy.
Since Jasper is so close to B.C., there’s even potential to work with that province through consolidated dispatch, said Garland. There’s also the same plan for Saskatchewan.
Since April 2009, AHS has been paying Jasper on a monthly basis to dispatch EMS resources, and those payments will stop when the transition happens, said Garland.
When asked if there will be cost associated with the transition, he replied that in some cases, this cessation of money could impact a town’s business model. But this depends mostly on what type of business model the town has in the first place.
The overwhelming consensus from stakeholders during the meeting was that the move to consolidated dispatch is a positive transition.
“It’s not going to change for the worse,” said Harvey.
The next steps for working toward transition include more data gathering and building the charter, and then “see where that takes us as far as a target transition date,” said Garland
Stakeholders will be kept in the loop through weekly email updates, said Thordarson.
More information about dispatch consolidation is available at www.albertahealthservices.ca/8425.asp.
