Time from when a 9-1-1 call is received by AHS EMS dispatch to when the first ambulance arrives at the scene of the incident. (see data definition)
Healthcare Areas
Home / Healthcare Areas / Emergency Department / Wait times / EMS response time for life-threatening events
Also in this section
- Primary Healthcare
- Clinical care
- Delivery of care
- Consistent use of the same primary care provider (provider continuity)
- Consistent use of the same primary care clinic (clinic continuity)
- Primary care provider use of various visit types
- Emergency department visits for minor conditions
- Primary care provider visit after a hospital stay for selected chronic conditions
- Patient experience
- Patients’ experience with primary care providers’ listening
- Patients’ rating of primary care provider’s explanations
- Patients’ experience with appointment length
- Patients’ experience with primary care provider’s respect
- Patients’ experiences with their primary care provider involving them in care decisions
- Patient experience with care coordination
- Patient experience with primary care provider availability
- Patients’ overall experience with their primary care provider
- Emergency Department
- Wait times
- EMS response time for life-threatening events
- Time spent by EMS at hospital
- Patient time to see an emergency doctor
- Patient emergency department total length of stay (LOS)
- Length of time emergency department patients wait for a hospital bed after a decision to admit
- Time to get X-ray completed
- Emergency department volumes
- Delivery of care
- Hospital patients who require an alternate level of care
- Length of patient hospital stay compared to Canadian average length of hospital stay
- Patients who left without being seen (LWBS) by an emergency department doctor
- Patients waiting in the emergency department for a hospital bed
- Hospital occupancy
- Patient experience
- Patient experience with staff introductions
- Patient experience with communication about follow-up care
- Patient experience with help for pain
- Communication with patients about possible side effects of medicines
- Patient reason for emergency department visit
- Overall patient experience with emergency department communication
- Overall rating of care
- Highlight Meaningful Changes
- Wait times
- Hospital Care
- Delivery of care
- Patient experience
- Overall rating of care
- Patient experience with talking with staff about help needed at home
- Patient experience with staff helping with pain
- Patient experience with information about their condition and treatment
- Patient experience with involvement in care decisions
- Patient experience with communication with nurses and doctors
- Client experience
- Number of different professional care staff
- Professional care staff gave choice in how care is provided
- Professional care staff explanation easy to understand
- Professional care staff listened carefully
- Professional care concerns handled satisfactorily
- Number of different personal care staff
- Personal care staff informed of arrival time
- Personal care staff listened carefully
- Personal care staff explanation easy to understand
- Personal care concerns handled satisfactorily
- Personal care staff were supportive
- Personal care staff had a warm presence
- Overall rating of professional care
- Overall rating of personal care
- Client overall care experience
- Home care helps clients stay at home
- Clinical care
- Symptoms of delirium
- Mood worsened from symptoms of depression
- Behavioural symptoms improved
- Inappropriate use of antipsychotics
- Worsening pain
- New pressure ulcers
- Physical restraint use
- Unexplained weight loss
- Cognitive performance
- Frailty and risk of health decline
- Potential depression
- Activities of daily living
- Delivery of care
- Family experience
- Family experience with courtesy and respect
- Family experience with decision-making
- Family experience with food
- Family experience with healthcare services and treatments
- Family experience with resident cared for by the same staff
- Family experience of resident and family council
- Family experience with sharing concerns
- Family experience with staffing
- Family experience with staff responsiveness
- Family overall rating of care
- Resident experience
- Resident overall experience
- Resident experiences with sharing concerns
- Resident experiences with rules
- Resident experiences with independence
- Resident experiences with feeling safe
- Resident experiences with activities
- Resident experience with getting their healthcare needs met
- Resident experience with food
- Resident experience with decision-making
- Delivery of care
- Resident experience
- Resident experience with decision-making
- Resident experience with food
- Resident experience with getting their healthcare needs met
- Resident experiences with sharing concerns
- Resident experiences with feeling safe
- Resident experiences with independence
- Resident experiences with rules
- Resident experiences with activities
- Resident overall experience
- Family experience
- Family experience with courtesy and respect
- Family experience with decision-making
- Family experience with food
- Family experience with healthcare services and treatments
- Family experience with resident cared for by the same staff
- Presence of a resident and family council
- Family experience with sharing concerns
- Family experience with staffing
- Family overall rating of care
Emergency Department
EMS response time for life-threatening events
*Alberta Health Services, Emergency Medical Services, System Performance and Innovation. “EMS Computer Assisted Dispatch (CAD) data.”
What do you see?
- Are there any trends over time in the zone and geographic area where you live?
- Are there differences in response times between the same geographic areas in different zones (e.g., Metro / Urban areas)?
Choose Zone
Why is it meaningful?
- Is there a relationship between this data and another healthcare area?
- Do you see successes worth highlighting or opportunities for improvement?
Understanding "EMS response time for life-threatening events"
When a life-threatening medical event occurs, the amount of time between the occurrence of the incident and when EMS staff arrive is critical.
The chart above tells us how long patients experiencing a life-threatening medical event wait for EMS staff to arrive, from when the 9-1-1 call is received by Alberta Health Services (AHS) EMS dispatch to when the first ambulance arrives at the scene of the incident. When dispatch receives a 9-1-1 call, the severity of the patient’s condition is assessed (triaged) in order to send the most appropriate help. All 9-1-1 calls in Alberta are assessed using the same triage criteria to determine patients’ level of urgency. Included in this chart are only those incidents triaged as life-threatening at the time of the 9-1-1 call.
Alberta is a large, geographically diverse province, where EMS response times will vary in relation to travel distances, and other subtleties unique to different areas of the province. To account for this, in the chart above, times are reported by four distinct geographic areas, based on the exact location of the life-threatening medical event:
- Metro / Urban areas
- Smaller communities (population more than 3,000 people)
- Rural areas
- Remote areas
What are the response time targets?
For life-threatening events, AHS has set response time targets for each of the four geographical areas listed above. Within each area, targets have been set for both the median, and 90th percentile. For 90th percentile, this means 9 out of 10 patients waited less than this amount of time, and 1 out of 10 patients waited longer. For Median (50th percentile), this means 5 out of 10 patients waited less than this amount of time, and 5 out of 10 patients waited longer.
When there are differences between response times for the same geographic areas in different zones, or for the same geographic location and zone over many months, it is a flag to ask why. Whether response times are getting longer or shorter, this information can be used to start a conversation between patients, EMS staff, and Alberta Health Services about possible causes and opportunities for improvement.