York Region paramedics are preparing for a new ambulance dispatch system that would see the most serious calls prioritized at the cost of longer waits for less critical incidents.
The province’s Ministry of Health is introducing the new medical priority dispatch system for paramedic calls in November, after years of advocacy from the regional municipality. The new system coming to the region's Georgian Dispatch Centre triage calls to ensure that more serious ones, like strokes, get priority over more minor injuries like sprains.
York Region Paramedic Services Chief Jeremy Watts told regional council Sept. 5 that the change would significantly benefit the emergency response system.
“It will ensure the most critical patients get help first, through better call prioritization, that best reflects the patient condition,” he said. “Better optimizing the right response to the right patient at the right time.”
The system will have dispatchers ask questions of the caller to assign specific codes that indicate the priority of the call.
The system already exists in several jurisdictions including Toronto and Halton Region, with Halton reporting a four per cent improvement in response times for high-acuity calls when it implemented the system in 2022. Halton also reported a reduction in siren responses from 70 per cent to 50 per cent.
York Region has pushed to have the province implement the system for years, given dispatch centres are mostly provincially regulated. After the Georgian Dispatch Centre was initially set to “go live” in November 2020, delays such as the pandemic put that off, but now the system will be in place for this November.
Vaughan Councillor Gino Rosati said this is long overdue.
“It will significantly improve our services to our residents,” he said.
The system does mean that low acuity calls could see significantly longer wait times in periods of high call volume. Dispatchers will call back to check in on those cases to monitor for changes in a patient’s condition, with people also told to call 911 again if a patient’s condition worsens and requires immediate attention.
But Watts said residents can expect a high quality of service.
“Regardless of these changes, paramedic services is prioritizing the customer service expectations of our residents with providing a clinically safe paramedic response,” he said.
General manager of paramedic and seniors services Chris Spearen also said that while the Ministry of Health laid out that the lowest priority call could hold up to four hours, York Region has made an agreement that calls would only be held for a maximum of 45 minutes.
The region plans to do public awareness campaigning on the new system starting this month. York Region Paramedic Services is also preparing an updated master plan for 2026, which will incorporate changes based on the evaluation of the new dispatch system.
