WELLINGTON COUNTY – Callers to 911 in need of paramedics will begin answering more detailed questions from ambulance dispatchers starting this week.
A new Medical Priority Dispatch System is rolling out at the Cambridge Central Ambulance Communications Centre, changing how paramedics are dispatched in Wellington and Dufferin counties, Guelph and the Region of Waterloo.
Callers will still be asked whether police, fire or ambulance is needed. The change, as of Dec. 3, happens once a provincial dispatcher takes over.
Aided by a computer, a dispatcher will ask more detailed questions than they did in the past, trying to understand exactly what’s happening and how urgently paramedics need to respond.
With better information, crews can be better allocated to calls such as a heart attack, where medical help is needed right away.
Many have pointed out the current system, known as the Dispatch Priority Card Index, lacks nuance and errs too much on the side of caution.
Those who can wait for help are getting assigned resources sooner than needed, as the system often triages non-emergent calls as higher priority.
It’s not uncommon for paramedics to speed to a call only to discover a slower response would have been more appropriate.
Meanwhile, potentially serious calls are ringing in as paramedics are tied up with non-urgent patients.
Last year, the province announced the new system would be rolled out everywhere by 2027 – part of the government’s “Your Health Plan” – following earlier rollouts in Mississauga, Kenora, Thunder Bay, Ottawa and Renfrew.
It’s currently being used in Toronto, Niagara, Kenora, Thunder Bay, Ottawa, Renfrew, Peel, Halton, Simcoe, York and Kingston regions. And similar systems are being used in 46 other countries.
With the new system, paramedics will be on the move while a dispatcher gathers more info, and there’s more flexibility to change a call’s priority mid-response.
“Initially it’ll be the basics, so you have a patient suffering chest pain, and then [paramedics] will get an update as they’re rolling,” said Guelph-Wellington Paramedic Services Chief Stephen Dewar.
Whereas the current system has around 100 categories to differentiate calls, the new one has 2,000.
A one-metre fall might be treated the same as a fall from a four-storey balcony, for example, but the new system can tell the difference.
“There’s still a potential for both of them to be life threatening, and we need to respond to both of them, but when faced with a situation of something severe happening next door, we need to be able to prioritize,” Dewar said.
Calls without voice contact will be dispatched as a lights-and-sirens response to the closest available crew.
Dewar, who has worked in pre-hospital medicine for 40 years, said the change from an unrefined and at times inaccurate dispatching system has been a “long-time coming.”
Paramedics, instead of being dispatched on a numbered, code-based system, will respond on a colour-based system.
It ranges from purple, the highest priority for someone needing resuscitation, to green, for something like a minor ache.
“It’s about what resources you need to get there,” the chief said.
With finer data points to be collected, Dewar noted the service will better understand what type of responses are needed, possibly opening the door to specialized paramedic crews.
Area fire departments, often dispatched to medically-related calls for extra hands, are also switching over to the colour-based system this week.
Firefighters will continue going to the same calls, Dewar said, but that could change as dispatching criteria is reworked to avoid unnecessary responses.
Dewar expects fewer ambulances speeding with lights and sirens as the new system determines what’s serious and what’s not.
“In other areas that have already switched over … they found with less emergency driving, it’s safer for the community, safer for other drivers,” Dewar said.
But it means those who can wait for paramedics, will experience longer response times.
“We’re not talking about making people wait hours,” Dewar said.
Someone with abdominal pain, he suggested, may wait a few extra minutes if someone choking is helped sooner.
Dispatchers will also keep in timely contact with lower-priority patients, checking that their condition hasn’t changed, Dewar noted.
As a city-provided service, Guelph council sets expectations for paramedic response times in Wellington County.
Compliance with those targets is reviewed monthly, Dewar said, and any abnormality because of the new system would be caught relatively quickly.
“It’s a step to modernizing, a step to improving and moving forward into a better system,” he said.
The Advertiser was unable to reach the Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 231, which represents ambulance communication officers and paramedics, for comment on the changes.
