Emergency Medical Services
In addition to primary in patient care, Alberta Health Services took over responsibility for all emergency medical services (EMS) from municipalities on April 1, 2009, making ground ambulances a responsibility of the provincial government.
Provincial air ambulance transitioned to AHS in April 2010. Also included in the provincial model of EMS are inter-facility hospital transfers, and EMS dispatch. In total, EMS serves the provincial population of 3.5 million over an area of 660,000 square kilometres.
In 2010, EMS averaged about 400,000 ambulance responses annually, with approximately 30% of these being patient transfers between health care facilities, and 70% being emergency responses.
EMS is provided by the provincial government through a hybrid of direct delivery and contracted services. In 2010 this hybrid consisted of 194 ground ambulance locations (115 direct delivery/79 contracted providers). Practitioners include approximately 4,000 paramedics, emergency medical technicians and emergency medical responders.
The STARS air ambulance flew approximately 1,300 missions in 2010, and another 5,500 patients were transferred by fixed-wing aircraft via contracted air ambulance providers in Alberta in that same year.
Read more about this topic: Alberta Health Services
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