(Emergency Work vs Non-Emergency Work)

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Warm Hearts, Helping Hands

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Central Ambulance Communication Centre

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Community Involvement

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Emergency Work

The prime mandate of Algoma EMS is to provide emergency medical care to the residents and visitors of the Algoma District.

The “90th Percentile” Performance Measurement
According to the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC), “the 90th Percentile often is easiest described by exclusion; only 10% of emergency-type calls take LONGER than the elapsed time represented by the 90th Percentile.” The Ambulance Act legislates all ambulance services to maintain their annual 90th percentile to less than or equal to their 1996 90th percentile. For the geographic area currently covered by Algoma EMS, the 1996 90th percentile benchmark is 23:03 (minutes:seconds).

Algoma EMS’ 90th percentile response time standard for 2008 was 21:30. This was 1 minute and 33 seconds under the established standard.

Average Response Time
In contrast to the 90th percentile, many people find the average response time to be a truer reflection and stronger indicator of actual operational efficiency. The average response time is defined as “the average time that passes from the moment that a paramedic crew is notified of an emergency-type call to the time the paramedics arrive on scene”. In 1999, the average response time for the geographic area of the Algoma District currently covered by Algoma EMS was 11:04 (minutes:seconds)*.

In 2009 Algoma EMS’ average response time within the geographic area of the Algoma District was 9:00. This was 2:04 faster than in 1999. This means that, on average, paramedics are now arriving at the scene of an emergency 19% faster than before the ADSAB was responsible for the service in 1999.

*Please note that there is no legislated benchmark for the average response time.

Reaction Time
While on-site Paramedic coverage is available (see below), it is the goal of Algoma EMS to commence a response to all ambulance calls within two (2) minutes of notification by the dispatch centre.

While on-call Paramedic coverage is available (see below), it is the goal of Algoma EMS to commence a response to all ambulance calls within eight (8) minutes of notification by the dispatch centre

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Non-Emergency Work

The Algoma District has many people who are either admitted to or live in a healthcare facility. These people are often in need of healthcare procedures and/or consultations that regularly require them to travel to both Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, where the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has centralized healthcare services for the residents of Northeastern Ontario and the Algoma District. An ambulance should only be the method of choice for moving someone where:

• the situation is an emergency
• there is a need for a stretcher and the person is medically unstable and in need of an escort
• a medical professional has determined that an ambulance is the most appropriate option to transport the patient.
  

Alternatively patients can be moved by an accessible taxi, family members, a transportation service offered by a volunteer organization or a private medical transport service, where available.

Algoma EMS is pleased to assist residents and the local healthcare community with low-priority interfacility patient movement where an ambulance is the most suitable method of transportation. To this end we have put additional ambulances on the road in both Elliot Lake and Thessalon. However it must be recognized that, even with these additional resources, we can only move low-priority patients when the use of our limited resources will not jeopardize our prime mandate of emergency medical coverage.

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Algoma EMS Deployment Strategy

*The second ambulance is staffed from Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 4:30 pm.

As you can see above, there is typically one ambulance available in each community at any given time. While history tells us that this is normally adequate to provide emergency coverage for our call volume, our ability to respond in a timely manner to emergencies is affected greatly when that lone ambulance is used to transport patients between medical facilities (non-emergency work).

In addition to the ambulance deployment above, Algoma EMS has two (2) Ford Expedition 4x4 SUVs and one (1) Ford F150 4x4 pickup truck. These vehicles are primarily First Response Units (FRUs) that can be upstaffed to provide emergency coverage when resources are stretched. There is one FRU assigned to our bases in Blind River, Richards Landing and Wawa. EMS management personnel use these vehicles for:

• administrative duties
• responding to emergency calls as a first responder
• responding to emergency calls to support on-scene Paramedics
• responding to large scale incidents requiring on-scene command

The movement of our vehicles and assignment of calls is controlled directly by the Sault Ste. Marie Central Ambulance Communication Centre (CACC), operated by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care’s Emergency Health Services Branch. Putting it briefly, we provide the CACC with our deployment strategy and they make the decisions with regard to how these resources are used. We try very hard to work collaboratively with the CACC to ensure that our ability to respond to an emergency call for help is not delayed for any reason, including non-emergency work.

To summarize, the prime mandate of Algoma EMS is emergency medical coverage. Although we do not have direct control over our own resources, we are always striving to ensure that, when someone needs emergency medical care, we have an ambulance with Paramedics available as close to their location as possible.

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Paramedic Coverage 7 days a week