Calgary getting new operations centre to address long ambulance wait times

Calgary is implementing a new initiative in May as part of work by Alberta Health Services (AHS) to tackle the pressure on Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and address long ambulance wait times.

The new Calgary Integrated Operations Centre (IOC) will launch next month to direct ambulances and EMS to the best care centre for each patient, based on their need and hospital capacity.

“We know Albertans are concerned with rising EMS pressures, and I’m confident that the new IOC in Calgary will be another tool to help address them by better managing patient flow and helping reduce delays,” said Minister of Health Jason Copping. “Albertans need to know that an ambulance will be available for them when they call 911. I look forward to seeing better access to emergency services thanks to the IOC, the rest of AHS’s 10-point plan, and the broad ongoing engagement led by our provincial EMS advisory committee.”

The Head of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, Mike Parker, welcomes the move but says much more needs to be done because people are dying while waiting for an ambulance.

“We still are running 400 vacant shifts for paramedics in this province every single week. We got units parked all over the province with no people on them. So we need to fix this part of the system. Our folks can’t get off shift on time and they’re stuck in hospital, so we got to do some work here, some real work,” said Parker.

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Parker says they need to hire more paramedics, reduce the stress on existing EMS staff and make it more affordable for people to train as a paramedic or EMT.

“People are dying – this is a reality today. We have incidents where multi-patient vehicle accidents in Edmonton have no transport ambulances arriving on scene and ended up with two fatalities. We have incidents in Calgary all the time, 30-minute response times to a cardiac arrest from the southside to the north side there is no coming back from those events,” said Parker.

AHS says the IOC will be comprised of specially trained paramedics and acute care inpatient capacity leads, and will help coordinate and support patients going to the hospital.

AHS also says the Calgary IOC has been modelled on the Edmonton IOC, which was launched in 2019.

The Calgary IOC will not impact dispatch or 911 call processes currently in place and an additional $12.2 million in funding has been approved for the next phase of the project.