Haliburton County residents are being advised about a new ambulance dispatch system and how it will impact them.
Starting March 26, Lindsay Central Ambulance Communications Centre, which dispatches paramedics working for Haliburton County Paramedic Services, will transition to the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS), as part of Ontario’s “Your Health Plan”.
Michael Slatter, chief/director of EMS of the County of Haliburton Paramedic Services, and Dr. Michael Feldman, an expert in the field, spoke at County council March 12.
Slatter said it is a modern system that will more effectively use ambulances in the County. The system is already being used in Toronto and Niagara Falls, B.C., and across much of the world, including England.
“It will create an efficient use of ambulance services in Haliburton County with balanced emergency coverage, should improve our response times, based on patient care needs and priority, and a big change is it uses a colour code system to prioritize the call and allocate resources,” Slatter said.
Feldman explained that dispatch in Lindsay will mark life-threatening calls as purple first, and red second; which will mean no delay in sending an ambulance. Purple means the call is 58 per cent life threatening, and red 2.2 per cent life threatening. Next up are orange (0.4 per cent life threatening); yellow (0.2 per cent life threatening) and green (0.1 per cent life threatening).
Basically, life-threatening calls get immediate response, while non-life-threatening calls receive less priority. In those instances, the 9-1-1 dispatcher will keep the person on the phone a bit longer to gather more information and provide instructions. In the case of delays for green, orange, and yellow, calls, they will monitor the patient from dispatch. For example, Feldman said they would call back to assess, and make sure the patient’s condition has not changed.
Feldman said the old system, DPCI-2, over-prioritizes calls.
He gave the example of a two-tiered (ambulance and fire) response to someone experiencing chest pain.
“If you had a young person playing baseball who pulled a muscle when they swung a bat, and were experiencing chest pain, this pulled muscle call would be dispatched as a lights and sirens call because chest pain under the old protocol always meant an emergency. Under the new protocol, we’ll be able to distinguish between the 17-year-old with a pulled muscle and the 80-year-old who is having a heart attack.”
He added MPDS is a more accurate way of assessing urgency; a better dispatch tool for deciding what resources to send, the standard of care, and will decrease unnecessary lights and sirens responses. He said it does not limit, or remove, any resources. “More urgent calls may see improved response times; delays are possible for low acuity calls.”
Fewer ambulances flying down the road with lights and sirens is also expected to lessen collisions, he said.
Coun. Jennifer Dailloux asked about the potential impact on the County’s volunteer fire departments. Slatter said he met with County fire chiefs March 7 to discuss the new system and how it is going to impact them.
Slatter added in a video presented to council, “this new system will help paramedic services preserve emergency medical capacity for those who need it most. It’s about the right care to the right people at the right time. For non-urgent healthcare or social service needs, please visit your local County website to find alternatives to calling 9-1-1.”
