James

Fischer

Call center chaos

The system that dispatches ambulances across Alberta is flawed and causes concern over the reliability of first response health care services. The problem lies in the way the 911 call centers decide whom to dispatch to the scene of an accident. The problem is not a shortage of call centers and ambulances but in fact the complete opposite, there are too many and a shortage of regulations causes inconsistency across all call centers. With 35 municipally run centers across Alberta it is clear to see where the discrepancy comes from. There is no consistency in operating standards from once call center to another and to make matters worst, each center operates individually of the one next to it. One report by the Health Quality Council of Alberta (HQCA) calls for immediate reform of the system in order to address a large quantity of complaints pouring in form citizens. The problem with multiple EMS dispatch centers is the confusion that comes from calls requesting help close to the boarders of dispatch jurisdiction. If an accident happens near the boarder, there is often dispute and confusion as to who should respond. Although one ambulance may be closer the accident will be dealt with by the jurisdiction the accident happened in despite the responding ambulance being further away. The provincial government needs to take control of these 911 call centers and work closely with Alberta Health Services (AHS) in order to address the concerns of consistency and reliability. The most effective way in order to do so, according to Health Minister Fred Horne is to shift control into the hands of only two larger

James Fischer dispatch centers one in north Alberta and the other down south. Fewer EMS dispatch centers will create consistency however reliability will only come when the provincial government puts laws in place to make all centers operate under the same procedures. By creating a consistent way to deal with data management the AHS will have a much more effective way to deal with ambulance dispatch. Some citizens in rural communities fear that fewer call centers will lead to less understanding of smaller and rural roads that could cause some response times to be very slow. I think that government intervention and laws creating consistency will address the problems of rural response time because of less confusion over who takes control. The Alberta government has the potential to give full control of the ambulance dispatch service to the AHS who can monitor the system and ensure that the laws put in place to create constancy are followed. The resources that are available is another concern that must be addressed however by keeping call centers at a municipal level while monitoring them at a provincial level the call centers will be much more efficient.