Well fuck, I think I just found a way to shave 30% off budget.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Well fuck, I think I just found a way to shave 30% off budget.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
I have a question for you, how come everytime I see an ahs ambulance attending a scene, there is also a red city of Calgary paramedics yukon?This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Too loud for Aspen
Can you provide the link to the suggested solution?This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
As for what's being done now, Epic/Connect Care. One patient, one record.
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/loc...hnology-system
It's about time for something like this. It's insane that you have to guess at medical terms for surgeries or procedures you had two or three decades ago.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Had a surgeon asking me detailed questions about a procedure I had, and he wasn't satisfied with my answers. I dunno. They didn't give me any paperwork when I was 12 years old.
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This is long overdue and excellent, but it still doesn't solve the initial enrollment process. I quoted a couple public articles on the last page. As far a link for the proposal, nope. However one link referred to the request in 2018.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Dannie Bilzerian based on my insider info.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
I am user #49Originally posted by rage2
Shit, there's only 49 users here, I doubt we'll even break 100
I have family and friends that leveraged this loophole. Live here for a few years to earn citizenship, have a health card, move back home. Years down the road have a serious medical issue that’s expensive where they live, move back temporarily, use the system, go home. It’s not illegal, but certainly a loophole that should be closed. Until the rules are changed, I don’t think you can thin out those numbers.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Originally posted by SEANBANERJEE
I have gone above and beyond what I should rightfully have to do to protect my good name
I could not agree more, this is a brilliant idea but good luck having our politicians do anything like this that makes so much sense.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
AB needs to get with the times and just attach the AB health care card to your drivers license. When your DL expires so does your AB healthcare card.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
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How does it work for people not old enough to drive?
That is a great question! So, there are different response determinants assigned to a call based on the information a caller gives the dispatcher, these range from A (no lights no siren), to E (insufficient breathing). On D and E responses it triggers the fire department to be dispatched to assist us with hands and whatnot because they're considered busier or sicker calls. The FD stopped sending fire trucks, and started staffing 2 firefighters on a yukon (they seem to always need a ranking officer on a vehicle) to respond to those. The key point to keep in mind is the RED yukons are City of Calgary, they are Fire department vehicles, and they ARE NOT Paramedics, they are FMR's (or advanced first aid kind of deal) providing basic first response care. Calgary went to the province and said we need more money to send more of these first aid yukons to calls. Someone at AHS finally said wait, why would we do that when we can send a Paramedic in a Yukon (and we work alone) to do that initial first response and provide advanced Paramedic treatment with all the same equipment as a regular ambulance. So we are working on improving our responses and it has been overwhelmingly successful, we can respond when there are few or no transport ambulances available, we can provide actual treatment, and we do it much more efficiently. We are also not susceptible to being stuck in a hospital hallway so our Yukons are almost always available to respond. And we often arrive 5-10 minutes before a full size ambulance, thats 5-10 minutes someone isn't waiting for advanced treatment or diagnostics.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
So to recap, red Yukon is the fire department, not a Paramedic, and they are the vast majority of the time cancelled shortly after response. It makes sense for them to reduce the wear and tear on the big trucks, but again its not terribly efficient as they have to double staff them, and they provide minimal tangible benefit to 98% of the calls. I should also add, they do respond to a number of calls, but not nearly all of them. The dispatch evaluation system is one that is centered on "over response", so many times because of layperson language (like gasping, or not completely alert, etc) it will trigger a much higher response than necessary (like D or an E). It happens the other way around too, we respond to A, B, C's and they are much worse or entirely different than presented by the dispatch notes. If thats the case and we need assistance we have to request another ambulance for backup.
We tried for some time to stop sending the FD to calls that were not fire's, MVC's etc, which reduced the FD call volume fairly significantly as the majority of the calls they are dispatched on are medical assists, and then subsequently cancelled often prior to them arriving or shortly after arriving. There's some political posturing that happens between the services still (like, they want to go on all of the medicals to show face to the patient before Paramedics, but when we ask for them to help with extricating someone difficult from a house, we often get refused a response). We had to start sending 2 ambulances (staffed with Advanced Paramedics) to those calls, which again is reducing the number of skilled responders going to actually do interventions, when those tasks could be assisted with non medical skilled individuals. This is not always the rule, but it certainly occurs quite frequently.
EDIT: And disclaimer, I'm not trying to be political in this message, but there is SO much confusion about the roles and responsibilities of both. We are separate services, full stop. Fire Departments have their place, I'm not a firefighter, nor do I want to be. Medical calls are for medical people, that's why and how we are trained. Lines are blurred in some services that are combined Fire/EMS, but Fire is Fire and they do good at what they do. EMS is EMS and we are good at what we do, and we should keep it that way! CFD, rather than saying AHS isn't responding fast enough to patients so give us more money so we can put firefighters on Yukons to fill that gap, should have supported increases in MEDICAL responders responding to MEDICAL calls, rather than increasing their own budget. They have the public and governmental support to be able to have a strong voice, and some support for what we have been saying for at least a decade+ would have been nice. If CFD was having troubles covering their fire responses, my stance would not be put more ambulances on the road so we can go to them....but that's the approach they've chosen.
Lastly, support EMS. We are doing so much with so little, I've been here almost 20 years, and the coverage, the response times, the call volume, the hospital waits, the overtime, its spiraled out of control and its taken such a toll on our workforce. Amazing practitioners giving it up, moving on to other careers after dedicating so much time to the field because its unsustainable, unhealthy and damaging. When we see things like "cut AHS" I understand that its not targeted at us, but in reality we are "THE" frontline service, and we would be cut. We just want to help people, so help us
Last edited by TurboMedic; 02-22-2019 at 02:30 PM.
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Maybe when AHS moves away from Windows XP, will they see change .... :p
^haha, yeah, tech in the public sector is almost always laughable at best.
Good perspective and info. I know my local fire hall doesn't have that "medical yukon" thing, so if they respond to a medical call, it's with the big fire engine. I hear a lot of stories from the other side of things, and I'm definitely biased, but within the city of Calgary, aren't FD the first on scene for most medical calls?This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Totally agree it's a mess sending both. It feel like it would be more efficient if medical and fire were operated by the same people and they could respond in a more intelligent and coordinated manner. But that's probably a dream.
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Thats a whole other topic regarding optimization of front line resources.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
Why does CFD CPS and EMS show to a deerfoot fender bender - especially where the vehicles are drivable?
The $$$$ amounts wasted there are enormous
We've had Windows 7 for quite a while now, and just got told about Windows 10 rollout haha. Still behind, but far from the XP daysThis quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
They have double the stations of us, at least, and they're usually always in the station as their work load is so dramatically less, so they for some time did get to medicals first, but thats what is changing now. We can beat them quite often to calls. And again, you're wanting non medical responders to show up at a medical instead of Paramedics? Who thinks like that. Thats like sending the windshield mobile repair guy to your flat tire because he's close and wants to make sure he can prove he gets calls. Fire and EMS have been together before, in Calgary in fact in the mid 80's it was. Red Deer, Lethbridge, etc do it ok, but all of their guys are required to be Paramedics and maintain that, which for the ACP level takes almost 4 years. Otherwise, combines services don't run well. Why would it need to be operated by the same people? What does Fire suppression have to do with Advanced Medical response? Would you say that Fire should take over Law enforcement too? Or is it just that you don't understand EMS and think its just something they can absorb? There are so many facets to EMS delivery that go beyond just responding to Medicals.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
That's a legal liability thing. I would like to not respond to everything as well, but its the same reason 911 hangups get responded to. As soon as a call goes into 911, a response is generated. Keep in mind, its not often the people involved in the accident that call 911, its drive by callers with their cell phones thinking they are "doing good" by reporting an accident they know nothing about. The ones that call non emergency police get just that, police. 911 is different, because of the "over response" criteria in the dispatch material, any MVC generates a multi agency response. Police for the legalities and towing, fire for cleanup, precaution, extrication and scene safety (their truck blocks alot of road in our warm zone), and EMS in case there are any injuries. Trust me we GTFO pretty fast if there aren't, we don't exactly love sitting on scenes for no reason.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
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You're right. It doesn't fix the enrollment process. However having one system across the province will make it possible to validate all the duplicates. I looked around to try and see if I could find this proposal, but I couldn't find any links relating to it. I'm not actually sure of how much good it would do when it came right down to it. It's not like anyone is going to get turned away for service. This isn't the US where you have to provide a credit card before you get any care. On another note, I have heard rumours (don't quote me) of a unified DL/ID card that includes Health information. That would go hand in hand with the new alberta ID portal and the Personal Health Portal.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
One thing that sticks in my craw is that people always say AHS costs Alberta 40%.(22B) Too bad it's not true. AHS annual budget is only 15B. Where's the other 6.6B going to? Did any of you know that there's an entirely Catholic health system running in parallel to AHS? They're responsible for almost 1B in cost by themselves.
The other thing that really sticks for me is the waste in OT. I know a number of nurses that are casual that won't work a shift until they're offered OT (2x) for it. They work 2 shifts a week for full time salary, then refuse to work any more until 3x is offered. This "casual" system was dreamed up by the PC's years ago as a cost saving measure and written into the union contracts. Net effect, pay way more for the hours worked and have to hire more headcount to cover all the shifts. Now it's embedded in the culture and the union agreements and it'll never go away. /rant
Last edited by codetrap; 02-27-2019 at 02:30 PM.
This was part of the proposal. Totally shut down by NDP because of inconvenience. On the flip side - BC has had raging success with this program.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
I don't think it was shut down because of inconvenience. I suspect that the NDP reference the study in 2008 that found that paper cards were the best option to address all the needs of all Albertans. Not just those of us with fixed addresses.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
How is paper better than plastic cards for vagrants?
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