Essex Windsor EMS continue working to strategize and implement measures to help improve response times.
Those measures include safely decreasing the number of patients being transported to hospitals, paramedic staffing enhancements, up staffing during periods of high volume, and collaborating with hospital partners to mitigate offload delays.
At Wednesday night's County Council meeting, EMS officials were asking council to approve hiring two District Chiefs for staffing inside the Windsor Central Ambulance Communications Centre (CACC) to achieve coverage for 12 hours per day, seven days per week.
Back in the fall of 2022, EMS received approval from the Ministry of Health to place a District Chief into the CACC to help with the flow of ambulances across the entire region.
Officials report that it had an immediate positive impact, and the position was eventually given the name Paramedic Patient Navigator (PPN).
These positions were paid for with Designated Offload Nurse Program (DONP) funding, which is used to pay for hospital staff to watch patients in offload beds at all three emergency departments.
Essex Windsor EMS has historically received just shy of $1 million in DONP funding annually, but back in January they received notification that the funding wasn't approved this year due to misalignment with the terms of the memorandum of agreement.
The PPN position continues to hold great value in providing operational efficiencies, and officials say ceasing to operate them would have a negative impact on the flow of ambulances at local hospitals, especially during periods of surge.
Chief Justin Lammers says they strongly believe the PPN positions need to continue at twelve hours per day, seven days per week because regular District Chiefs are on the front lines performing their difficult duties.
"However the PPN sees the entire operation and can make tweaks and adjustments along the way to avoid a crisis. Additionally they're supporting the other items I spoke to, and within the report, that not only keep the flow going but keep us compliant with our legislative requirements. Most importantly that we're not missing anything with our team," he said.
Lammer says they worked closely with the Ministry of Health to find anyway they could reduce the impact of the funding hole due to the PPNs not meeting the terms of the original funding source, but it just wasn't possible.
"We started the PPN position when our service was facing very difficult times. Ambulance availability was the lowest it had ever been, and we had called a declaration of emergency due to the lack of availability in our region. In the days that followed there were many discussions with our ministry partners, during these discussions there was approval from the MOH to place a District Chief in the communication centre to help, but there was never a formal agreement on how it would be funded."
While cautioning the situation is still in flux, Lammers believes the numbers clearly show what they've been doing is working to eliminate problems like Code Blacks.
"I know it is a big topic with councils, so I pulled some numbers before I came tonight. In January we had 174 minutes of Code Black, in February we had none, and in March we had three minutes. So we're trending in the right direction, it's too early to say that we're out of the woods, but yeah... we're trending in the right direction," he stated.
County Council ultimately voted unanimously to approve the continuation of staff in two PPN positions to mitigate offload delays, as well as agreeing to fund the County portion of those positions through levy dollars starting in 2025.
By approving the recommendation on Wednesday the County budget will be impacted by $137,349 in 2024 and $113,165 in 2025.