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The use of a priority dispatch system for ambulances will allow the Fire Services Department (FSD) to reduce its response times to the most critical patients to those similar to international best practice systems, according to the findings of a consultancy study.
Priority dispatch is a widely used tool that enables communications personnel to categorise and prioritise response to those requesting an ambulance by following established interrogation questions and approved response protocols.
In a media briefing on the consultancy's findings, Director of Fire Services Lam Chun-man today (November 17) said that priority dispatch would provide a significantly quicker response to those categories of patients in which time was critical.
He said that if the system was adopted, high priority calls, such as heart attacks, would be responded to three minutes faster than currently pledged.
At present, the department's response time pledge is 12 minutes for all types of calls. The consultancy report points out that for critical calls, such response times have exceeded international best practice recommended times.
It also observes that many of the calls in Hong Kong are non-critical in nature but consume resources needed to respond to critical calls.
The report recommends the implementation of a priority dispatch system with related deployment strategies to achieve the set response times for five categories of calls.
It recommends nine minutes for critical patients of category "Echo"; also nine minutes for life threatening patients of category "Delta"; 15 minutes for serious but non-life threatening patients of category "Charlie"; 20 minutes for non-life threatening and less serious patients of category "Bravo"; and 30 minutes for non-emergency patients of category "Alpha".
For categories "Echo", "Delta" and "Charlie", the compliance targets are 90% of calls. Internal goals instead of pledges are recommended to be set for categories "Bravo" and "Alpha".
Director Lam said that the 90% compliance target for a response time of nine minutes for critical calls was in line with international best practice.
Fire Services Communication Centre staff will need about 40 hours' training in the new system.
The implementation of the priority dispatch system will cost about $32.1 million, including acquisition and training costs, with an estimated annual recurrent cost of $5 million.
The Hospital Authority is in support of the implementation of the system. In its feedback to the consultancy report, it noted that a form of triage to ensure that health care was provided to more critical patients first would be a logical move.
Ends/Thursday, November 17, 2005
Issued at HKT 16:33
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