Medical Communications Management Center (MCMC)
Based in Moncton, the centralized ambulance dispatch system, known as MCMC (Medical Communications Management Centre), now takes all EMS calls and dispatches all land and air ambulances throughout New Brunswick, including the City of Saint John and Island of Grand Manan.
Monitoring and reporting on 911 call processing times is an integral component of MCMC operations. Utilizing American Tritech’s CAD (Computer Aided Dispatching) software, coupled with Medical Priorities 911 call triaging software, greater than 90 per cent of all 911 calls are processed and dispatched within 90 seconds.
Through the use of digital mapping integrated with the CAD and with the GPS/AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) system in ambulances, dispatchers know where the caller is calling from and also where the closest ambulance able to respond to an emergency is located.
With the new centre and the GPS/AVL technology, the MCMC is one of the most technologically advanced dispatch centers of its type, able to provide rapid triaging and coordinated dispatching of ambulances across New Brunswick.
Land Ambulance (Paramedics)
Ambulances are deployed in response to calls placed to the New Brunswick 911 system and also used to transport patients between health care facilities. The total call volume for both 911 calls and inter-facility transfers has been increasing steadily over the past five years. On an annual basis, inter-facility transfers contribute approximately 37 per cent of the ambulance call volume in the province.
This trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future due to a number of factors including an aging population, concentration of specialized medical services in some hospitals and implementation of the community health center plan.
Air Ambulance (Flight Nurses)
The Air Ambulance Service is designed to achieve four key goals:
- to augment land ambulance inter-facility transports;
- to perform intra-provincial and inter-provincial critical care transports;
- to return patients from inter-provincial services rendered in 2), and
- to negate the necessity of relying on external air carriers to perform these functions.
The air ambulance service has moved from a paramedic/nurse based care delivery model, to a fully nurse based system, with recruitment and initial training activities completed. The full staff, composed of 15 flight nurses, also receives ongoing training to maintain a high degree of clinical competence pertinent to the high acuity calls being performed by the air ambulance service.