Alberta Paramedics Sound The Alarm on Patient Harm

The Reporting and Learning System (RLS) is a tool used by healthcare workers in Alberta to flag patient safety incidents that caused harm or near misses that had the potential to cause harm to patients.

RLS is an important tool to identify factors that are putting patients at risk. Ideally, once these factors are identified, the RLS reports can serve as evidence to support change. Through FOIP requests, we have been provided with the number of RLS reports submitted by paramedics over the years identifying short staffing or long response times as a factor that directly contributed to patient harm or had the potential to contribute to patient harm. Keep in mind, we know this issue is under-reported by paramedics because they have come to accept short staffing and long response times as part of the job. Paramedics are also discouraged by the lack of urgency to fix this issue and take it seriously. Most paramedics do not have to think too hard to recall a story where they responded to a patient that likely experienced harm due to an extended response time.

These numbers show that the number of RLS reports submitted by paramedics related to this issue have been unacceptably high for several years and reported incidents of patient harm occurring due to long response times by the end of 2025 are projected to be at the highest level since 2018.

These RLS reports should be a significant call to action that major changes are needed to improve EMS staffing and resource availability. A fair and progressive contract for paramedics, changes to how ambulances are dispatched and more ambulances on the road would be a good start to addressing this issue. We have not seen any progress on any of these suggestions.