Niagara Region's EMS may need to start doing things differently to keep pace with a rapidly increasing demand.
Since 2011, call volume has spiked 46.6% according to Niagara EMS Chief Kevin Smith - last year alone, paramedics spent more than 15,000 hours waiting to deliver patients to the hospital.
Smith says resources could be better managed by changing how EMS responds to calls.
"The social expectation when we call 911 is an ambulance comes down my street, lights and sirens, two paramedics come and they take me to the hospital - I'm well cared for. That's an expectation that's been driven over the years. What we know now is that in order to maintain that type of a system model, to have that level of expectation, is not sustainable given the volumes that we've seen and it's not the right thing to do for the patients. It's not to go screaming to every call, and not to take every patient to the hospital to receive their care. There's other ways in which they can receive more appropriate, more timely care than through the doors of the emergency department."
Smith tells CKTB not all cases are best handled in a hospital and sometimes there are community supports that can better handle a patient's issue.
He also suggested teaming up with other health disciplines and partners to identify specific needs when people call 911.
"We can do that through better screening when people call 911. We have a great system right now to triage patients, but we could probably do a little bit better by having the concept of a nurse in our dispatch centre to do some clinical assessment."
Smith told the Niagara Public Health Committee that EMS could use $1.16 million to develop a new strategy that would suggest alternatives to simply rushing to the hospital.
Regional councillors will be considering the request on March 22nd.