The insignia for the Bruce County Paramedic Services (image courtesy of Bruce County)
Bruce County will be introducing a a medical priority dispatch system starting next month.
In a report received by county council on Thursday, the MPDS will be deployed by the London Central Ambulance Communications Centre starting on October 14th.
Director of Emergency Services Steve Schaus shared that the MPDS is a provincially-mandated, evidence-based medical dispatch system that is aimed at improving how 911 medical calls are prioritized, ensuring that patients with the greatest medical need get the correct medical resources.
“Right now, when we’re assigned on a Code 4, so lights and sirens, we can’t get diverted to another call,” explained Schaus. “Whereas this system, if there is a higher priority call, we can get diverted to that call.”
For example, if emergency services are going to respond to a broken arm, but then receives a call for a cardiac event, the crew will then be re-routed to answer the cardiac patient first.
Other municipalities in Ontario that already have the system implemented have seen positive results.
“The MPDS group has been very cooperative and informative in the sense that it’s new to everybody. It’s a huge undertaking for the province to bring in this new system,” said Schaus.
The Province of Ontario is implementing the priority system as a part of its Patient Journey Framework.
The pre-planning phases for the implementation have been completed, and the county is working on stakeholder engagement, and is looking forward to a public education campaign.
To prepare and support the MPDS implementation, Bruce County Paramedic Services has worked with municipal fire service partners to develop two standardized Tiered Response
Agreement streams: one with medical oversight, and one without.
The two different agreements are to recognize that participating fire departments operate under different service delivery frameworks.
The two streams allow each municipality to operate under terms that accurately reflect the chosen level of participation in tiered response.