Foothills EMS is hoping a review of Alberta’s health-care system will help its case to return 911 dispatch to the region.
Suzanne Oel, chair of Foothills Regional Emergency Services Commission (FRESC) said one of the recommendations on the Ernst & Young review of Alberta Heath Services (AHS) hit home for the group.
Recommendation 34 suggests consolidating EMS dispatch in the City of Calgary, the City of Lethbridge, the City of Red Deer and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, to be managed by AHS. This is what happened with Foothills 911 when AHS began operating its ambulance dispatch, resulting in delays in service.
“This is kind of an opportunity to renew our case and request for the return of EMS dispatch to Foothills,” said Oel. “We still experience challenging situations in dealing with the EMS dispatch at a separate centre, so we see this as an opportunity to be part of the conversation.”
FRESC has been fighting to regain full control of its EMS dispatch since 2009, she said.
She said moving to AHS-controlled dispatch has not worked effectively, and in 2017 FRESC brought forward information and examples of service issues to the public. It had the backing of the UCP, then the opposition government, so Oel said she hopes the case to end consolidation of services will be heard now, especially with more voices at the table.
The cities of Calgary, Lethbridge and Red Deer, and RM of Wood Buffalo are not in favour of moving their EMS dispatch to a centralized AHS service, and Oel said FRESC will be backing them in their fight.
“I’m sure the cities are looking forward to our support, because we’ve got a lot of homework done for them and they can use us as an example,” she said.
The recommendation to consolidate EMS dispatch aims to reduce costs and what the report refers to as a duplication of services. Oel said FRESC has its own ideas to achieve those results without moving to centralization, but instead promoting better co-ordination of fire and EMS responses.
“The call co-ordination and time is really what affects the service levels,” said Oel.
The proposal is to use existing 911 dispatch centres for EMS dispatch and to remove duplication of services by AHS in order to reduce costs.
In addition, she said they suggest developing EMS dispatch standards, building on current provincial 911 standards, to ensure the quality of service in an expanded dynamic EMS dispatch model.
“That name, the dynamic EMS dispatch model, comes right from AHS,” said Oel. “That's the title they gave to having the satellite dispatch centres.”
She said there are at least nine qualified centres across the province where EMS dispatch could be run using existing, paid-for services, rather than separating EMS and fire into two locations.
The result would be two-fold, she said – there would be a cost savings by removing the duplication of services, equipment and frontline personnel necessary to run both dispatches, and service delivery would also improve with co-ordinated calls.
“In rural and suburban Alberta it’s better for fire and EMS to be dispatched from the same call centre,” said Oel. “Co-ordinating dispatch is the best utilization of resources in the communities, where fire is most often first-on-scene, and that is still the case.”
She said when calls are broken up into different centres, the time to respond increases. Foothills 911 might receive the call, but then has to send it to EMS, which may then return the call back to Foothills for fire response.
“You’re looking at first breaking up the call and then sending the call back to dispatch the fire because often ambulance can’t respond in a timely manner,” said Oel. “So that’s where the issue is and the reason why you want to have that co-ordination or triage in the one call centre. That’s where you have the best, most effective delivery of service for the 911 call.”
FRESC is hoping to submit its proposal to both the red tape reduction and health care ministries for consideration in the Province’s spring session, she said.
“We’re hoping we’ll be able to have renewed conversation and re-explain our story, and look forward to maybe a more beneficial outcome,” said Oel.
Highwood MLA RJ Sigurdson said there have been no decisions made on the AHS review report to-date, besides Minister of Health Tyler Shandro discarding recommendations to close down hospitals and triage centres.
The remaining 49 recommendations are going to member policy committees, with the entire government discussing which make sense and will improve efficiencies and patient care, he said.
“That has to be the consideration, because in no way are we going to make decisions that negatively impact patient care,” said Sigurdson.
He said he’s heard the concerns of FRESC and will take the group’s thoughts into his committee discussions when the government returns to session on Feb. 25.
Review of the entire report will be done over the next 100 days, he said.
