Emergency Medical Services in New Zealand - Communications

Communications

The EMS system in New Zealand is served by three dispatch centres, located in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. The dispatch centre in Christchurch provides coverage to the entire South Island, and is operated by St. John Ambulance. The dispatch centre in Auckland provides coverage for the north half of North Island, and is also operated by St. John Ambulance. The dispatch centre in Wellington provides coverage for the southern half of the North Island, is jointly operated by Wellington Free Ambulance and St John Ambulance but is staffed by Wellington Free Ambulance personnel. All three dispatch centres collaborate, and are capable of handling overflow of call volume for one another. The call centre technology is fully integrated and seamless, providing a single, 'virtual' national dispatch centre. To illustrate, if an emergency has occurred in Christchurch but those 1-1-1 lines are all busy, the call will be forwarded to the dispatch centres in either Auckland or Wellington. The call will be answered, information gathered, and placed into the computer network. It will then appear as a pending call on the desk of the appropriate dispatcher in Christchurch, all seamlessly.

The national emergency number for ambulances in New Zealand is 1-1-1. The three dispatch centres also include significant advanced technologies, including AMPDS and Siren software for the triaging and assignment of calls. They also include a nationwide network of Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL), showing the location and current status of every ambulance in the country. All dispatchers in New Zealand are certified Emergency Medical Dispatchers (EMDs), and meet the international standard for that qualification. Between them, the ambulance dispatch centres process approximately 300,000 calls per year originating with the 1-1-1 system. They also process an additional 800,000 calls per year from GPs, hospitals requesting transfers, medical alarm monitoring companies, and from paramedics themselves.

The telephone triage system used within the communication centres is the internationally regarded Advanced Priority Medical Dispatch System also known as ProQA whereby the caller is interrogated to determine the most appropriate problem detriment to guide the level of response in terms of speed and clinical capability.