Show notes
This episode of EMS One-Stop With Rob Lawrence is brought to you by Lexipol, the experts in policy, training, wellness support and grants assistance for first responders and government leaders. To learn more, visit lexipol.com.
In this EMS One-Stop international edition, this month, Rob Lawrence talks with Professor Tony Walker, immediate past chief executive officer of Ambulance Victoria, a professor with the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences and Bachelor Paramedic Studies at Monash University. While in charge of Ambulance Victoria, Tony led significant transformation to improve the health and well-being of their workforce and the response they provide to the community.
In this broad-reaching discussion, Tony explains the structure, organization and funding models of EMS down under and then Rob and Tony identify current challenges, issues and solutions common to both the U.S. and Australia, including the dreaded hospital handover challenges as well as reduction in lights and siren responses.
TOP QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE
“We know at least one in five people who call triple zero, our 911 equivalent, don’t require an emergency ambulance and so new models of care are being developed.”
“When people call triple zero, they no longer expect that they will automatically get an ambulance, as often described to people, you don’t walk into a hospital triage and say I’d like you to admit me to the coronary care unit,, you get triaged, you work out what is wrong by a health professional and you get the care you need; that’s exactly the same being applied in the paradigm of ambulance service delivery here in Victoria and the rest of Australia.”
“In the next decade or so, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see predominantly women making up the majority of staff working on frontline ambulances.”
“New models of care have been developed. We have looked at the MPDS grid and where the disposition of those patients go to so we have reduced significantly the number of lights and sirens responses which has enabled us.”
“Issues of transfer of care in hospital are a real challenge for ambulance services in the time it takes to transfer patients and there is no easy fix for that.”
“If you are a paramedic who has gone to university, done your training, wants to deliver care and you are spending a significant proportion of your shift in an emergency department caring for your patient before he can offload it, that can be demoralizing and that probably goes against why you joined in the first place.”
EPISODE CONTENTS
1:16 Introducing Tony Walker
2:00 The scale and scope of Australian Services
05:45 Healthcare funding – how does the patient get their healthcare
7:45 EMS system organization and deployment
09:15 Degrees and paramedic education
11:50 Student debt … or not!
14:10 Is Australia over-producing graduate medics?
16:40 Alternative treatment models
19:00 Reducing lights and siren responses
21:08 Public expectation education
23:02 Looking after your people
25:50 Handover delay at the ED – a global issue
27:00 Gender and diversity
27:34 Scheduling and rostering – creating a flexible roster that meets the needs of the individual and service
28:40 Hospital capacity and flow issues
31:08 How can you work in Australia?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Professor Tony Walker, ASM, is a registered paramedic with over 36 years’ experience working across senior clinical, operational and leadership roles within the ambulance sector. He was previously chief executive officer of Ambulance Victoria, where he led significant transformation to improve the health and well-being of their workforce and the response they provide to the community.
Tony is a Fellow of the Australasian College of Paramedicine and holds a Bachelor of Paramedic Studies, Graduate Certificate of Applied Management, Graduate Diploma of Emergency Health (MICA) and Master of Education. He is a non-executive director of the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, the Emergency Services Foundation and TLC for Kids, a Director of Fairhaven Consulting Pty. Ltd., and an executive member of the Global Resuscitation Alliance and an Associate Investigator with the Australian Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium.
He is a past non-executive director and chair of the Council of Ambulance Authorities (CAA), the peak body representing the eleven statutory ambulance services across Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, past chair of the Australian Resuscitation Council (Victorian branch) and past deputy convenor of the Australian Resuscitation Council ALS sub-committee.
Tony is published in an extensive range of literature relating to advancements in paramedic practice and prehospital systems of care, including prehospital thrombolysis, cardiac arrest, pain relief and prehospital rapid sequence intubation for traumatic brain injury.
Tony is a recipient of the Ambulance Service Medal (ASM) for his contribution to the development of ambulance services at a state and national level and awarded the National Heart Foundation President’s Award and Australian Resuscitation Council Medal (ARC) and included in the ARC Honor Roll, for his significant contributions to improving cardiovascular health and resuscitation practice and outcomes. He was a finalist for the Australian Mental Health Prize in 2019 in recognition of his work in improving paramedic mental health and wellbeing.
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