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Grey County paramedics met the response time targets they set for 2020.
Response time targets are based on the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale, with swifter responses set for more life-threatening problems, such as sudden cardiac arrest, than for lesser health issues.
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The response times are set by the province but how often they’re met is the target local paramedic managers set, based on realities of responding in a huge geographic area, which is seeing growing call volumes.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Access to primary care outside of regular working hours is limited in many countries. This study investigates the relation between the after-hours premium, an incentive for primary care physicians to provide services after hours, and less-urgent visits to the emergency department in Ontario, Canada.
METHODS: We analyzed a retrospective cohort of a random sample of Ontario residents from April 2002 to March 2006, and a subcohort of patients followed from April 2005 to March 2016. We linked patient and primary care physician data with emergency department visit data. We used fixed-effects regression models to analyze the association between the introduction of the after-hours premium, as well as subsequent increases in the value of the premium, and the number of monthly emergency department visits.