Medical Priority Dispatch System
Starting March 26, 2025, Haliburton County Paramedic Services and Ambulance Communications Officers in the Lindsay Centre Ambulance Communications Centre (CACC) will adopt the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS).
Watch this video from our local Paramedic Chiefs to learn more:
What does this mean for those who call 9-1-1?
-
People should continue to call 9-1-1 for life-threatening medical emergencies, especially in cases such as cardiac or stroke symptoms, loss of consciousness, severe bleeding, or trauma.
-
Callers should be prepared to provide detailed information to Ambulance Communications Officers regarding the patient's condition and location.
-
Individuals who call 9-1-1 for non-life-threatening issues may experience longer wait times for service, depending on the patient's condition and the nature of the emergency. Ambulance Communications Officers will remain in contact to provide support and monitor the patient's status.
What is MPDS?
-
MPDS is a medical triage system designed to prioritize the most urgent calls, ensure resources are allocated based on the clinical needs of each case, and enable paramedics to return to service as quickly as possible after each call.
-
This evidence-based system incorporates testing, development, and quality assurance measures to maintain the highest standard of patient care and ensure paramedics are available for those in urgent need.
-
It is the professional standard for patient triage for more than 35,000 ambulance communications centres in more than 46 countries, and will be used by all emergency medical services in Ontario. It is in place in Toronto, Niagara, Kenora, Thunder Bay, Ottawa, Renfrew, Peel, Halton, York, and more. Our emergency medical response system partners at Lanark County, Hastings-Quinte, Lennox & Addington, and Leeds and Grenville Paramedic Services switched to MPDS on February 5, 2025. Coordination among paramedic services and the Kingston Central Ambulance Communications Centre is a collaborative effort among all our organizations.
-
It is part of the Government of Ontario's Your Health plan, which is designed to ensure that paramedics provide the right care at the right time, and to reduce non-urgent demand pressure on emergency departments.
Frequently Asked Questions
| Why the change? |
|
This change ensures that patients with life-threatening conditions receive the quickest and best possible care before reaching the hospital. It gives paramedics the best opportunity to save lives. Under the previous system, paramedics often had to respond to less urgent calls before more critical ones, causing longer wait times and delays at the hospital. |
| How does the Medical Priority Dispatch System work? |
|
The Medical Priority Dispatch System is a software tool that helps Ambulance Communications Officers prioritize 9-1-1 calls based on the severity of the patient's medical condition. This system is used worldwide and is trusted to identify:
The system is based on decades of research and medical evidence, ensuring that operators can make the best informed decisions possible. |
| What are the expected benefits of this new system? |
|
In addition to ensuring patients receive the right care and equipment at the right time, data from regions already using the MPDS shows significant improvements in key operational challenges. For example, prioritizing life-threatening cases over less urgent ones have reduced offload delays at hospitals, helping to save hospital beds for the most critical patients. These improvements are also expected to benefit paramedic staff, enhancing their work-life balance by better managing meal breaks and reducing overtime at the end of shifts. This contributes to the overall efficiency of paramedic services. |
| Will non-urgent patients still receive help? |
|
Yes, for less urgent cases, patients will be closely monitored through ongoing communication with Ambulance Communications Officers to ensure there are no changes in the patient's condition. |
| What to do if your situation changes while waiting? |
|
An Ambulance Communications Officer will stay in contact with you through regular check-ins to monitor your symptoms while you wait. If your condition worsens, they will re-prioritize your call and send help right away. If anything changes suddenly, please call 9-1-1 again immediately. |
| What happens when you call 9-1-1? |
|
Ambulance Communications Officers (call-takers and dispatchers) will ask a few additional questions to better assess the urgency of your situation. These questions will only take a short amount of time and will help ensure the right help is sent at the right moment. It is important to provide as many details as possible. The more questions you answer, the better equipped the communications officers will be to send the most appropriate resources. If you do not answer the questions, there is a risk that your call may be incorrectly categorized as non-urgent. |
| Why have you waited a while for the ambulance to arrive? |
|
Those experiencing life-threatening emergencies, such as a heart attack or stroke, will receive help within minutes. If you are waiting, it means others in your community need more urgent care. For example, if you have a broken bone and someone else is having difficulty breathing, the next available paramedic will be sent to help the person struggling to breathe first. This does not mean your call is not important. We understand how stressful it can be to wait for paramedics, especially when you or a loved one is in pain. Paramedics are dedicated to helping you and will arrive as quickly as possible. |
| Do non-urgent calls get dispatched immediately if there are no urgent calls? |
|
Non-urgent calls will be assigned to the most appropriate paramedic resource for your situation. If all paramedics are currently responding to higher priority calls, the next available paramedic will be dispatched to assist you as soon as possible. |
| How to assess the degree of emergency of a medical situation. |
|
Dispatchers and paramedics work together to ensure efficient management of 9-1-1 calls. The new Medical Priority Dispatch System classifies medical situations based on several criteria to better assist patients and send the appropriate resources. To gather all the necessary information, dispatchers will ask more questions. Providing complete details is crucial, as missing or insufficient information can lead to incorrect call prioritization. Here are some examples of medical situations considered potentially life-threatening (non-exhaustive list):
Here are some examples of medical situations considered non-urgent (non-exhaustive list):
If a medical situation is assessed as non-urgent, the patient will receive follow-up calls while waiting for an ambulance to ensure their condition has not worsened. If the situation changes, the patient can call 9-1-1 again to report the updates. The dispatcher will reassess the situation and available paramedic resources. Therefore, it is important to provide updates as needed. |
| What alternative resources are available to the community for non-urgent care? |
|
When a person is experiencing a medical situation that is non-urgent, they are encouraged to use other resources available in the community, such as:
Please note: If you are thinking about suicide or worried about someone you know, call or text 9-8-8 toll-free, anytime for support in English and French. |