They say you can’t polish a turd, but AHS EMS leadership seems determined to prove otherwise. Enter the EMS-811 Shared Response program, a "solution" so clumsy it makes duct-taping a leaky pipe look like cutting-edge innovation. On paper, this program was supposed to save paramedics from burnout and redirect non-urgent calls to 811. In practice? It’s more like a bad group project where one person does all the work—except the person is Alberta Paramedics, and the work is everything.
Spoiler alert: this program didn't just fall short of expectations; it tripped over its own feet, face-planted, and asked Paramedics to clean up the mess. But hey, if reading this disaster makes you want to throw your phone, maybe channel that energy into our GiveSendGo instead. Every donation helps us keep holding AHS to account—and trust us, they need it. Buckle up; the stats ahead will either make you laugh, cry, or consider that application to the Fire Department.
One of AHS’s and the government’s supposed “fixes” for the EMS crisis is the EMS-811 Shared Response program. We’ve been hearing rumblings about the program’s ineffective nature for a while, and it’s something we’ve wanted to dive into—until now, when we finally found the time.
To refresh your memory, we went back to a few news stories explaining what this program was meant to accomplish:
But assuming you don’t hate yourself enough to read nearly two-year-old news articles, here’s a quote from the Calgary Herald that sums everything up nicely:
During a two-week trial, EMS dispatchers have redirected approximately 1,000 low-acuity calls from ambulance responses to 811 for assistance, said Health Minister Jason Copping. Under the plan, an estimated 40,000 calls a year will be passed to Health Link — freeing up more ambulances for urgent incidents.
On paper, it’s brilliant—freeing up ambulances for real emergencies. There was potential here, but instead it became wall paper over a gaping hole in EMS system, but more on that shortly.
Don’t get us wrong; this initiative had potential. It should’ve been a no-brainer—a chance to redirect non-urgent cases to 811 and keep people out of overcrowded emergency rooms. But good ideas rarely survive when AHS “leadership” is involved.
Fast-forward to today, and the EMS system is still drowning. Paramedics face record call volumes, unfilled shifts keep piling up, and the solution should be obvious: hire more paramedics, improve working conditions, and fix the chronic underfunding.
The Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA) sort of recognized this, arguing that the focus must remain on staffing ambulances and supporting dispatchers. Let’s call their response a C—maybe a generous C+ at best.
Even Rachel Notley almost got it right, citing the nearly 10,000 unfilled EMS shifts (at the time) as evidence of a system in crisis. But, like too many politicians before her, she turned it into another UCP vs. NDP blame game. This kind of partisan bickering is a chronic issue in Alberta’s healthcare system, giving AHS management a free pass to avoid accountability.
That’s not just missing from AHS “leadership’s” vocabulary—it’s a concept they neither understand nor fear. It should be a word that keeps them awake at night but instead, it’s ignored in the endless political gamesmanship. When initiatives like the Health Link referral program fail, there should be consequences—but instead, they skate by without a care in the world.
The Letdown: Stats That Make You Want to Scream
So, what’s next? Let’s take a hard look at just how abysmal the Health Link referral program has become. Spoiler alert: it’s not pretty.
The program began in February 2023 and was supposed to remove up to 40,000 EMS calls annually from the workloads of exhausted crews. Much to our surprise, however, in nearly two years, the program has only been activated 32,981 times. Talk about a letdown—when you’re expecting a score of around 80,000 and you see 32,981, it’s hard not to feel disappointed.
If you’re as disappointed as we were, stick with us, because this is about to get worse than the day you found out Santa Claus wasn’t real.
Failure Rate 101: The Numbers Don’t Lie (Except When AHS Does)
So, is this program at least removing 32,981 calls a year? Nope. Of those events, 2,406 aren’t even answered by Health Link. The ECO (Emergency Communications Officer) tries to connect the call with Health Link, but after it rings for more than three minutes with no answer, they’re forced to give up. And what happens then? Send the ambulance!
This makes up about 7% of the Health Link referral failure rate.
Then there are the 1,889 events that were sent to Health Link but never completed for one reason or another. According to AHS, examples include the call being disconnected or an evaluation not being completed by 8-1-1. What does that mean? Anything from "Oops, I hung up" to "How dare you suggest I don’t need an ambulance!" And the result? You guessed it: Send the ambulance!
This makes up 6% of the Health Link referral failure rate.
AHS Leadership: Still Imaginatively Deficient
Remember when we said AHS EMS "leadership" was imaginatively deficient? Turns out, we may have been too kind. A staggering 9,938 Health Link referral calls are punted back to EMS each year because while Health Link decides it's not an ambulance-worthy emergency, the patient says, “Hey, I’ve got no wheels!” Apparently, this revelation baffles AHS leadership like it’s breaking news. Taxis? Ubers? Access Calgary? Buses? Trains? No, no, those are mythical creatures in their eyes—why pay $50 for a taxi chit when you can send an ambulance instead? Genius budgeting, right?
And let’s not forget the moral injury here—paramedics showing up for what essentially amounts to a glorified carpool, only to risk being reprimanded if they dare suggest that their time might be better spent elsewhere, like a real emergency, or being the lone ambulance in their home community. Meanwhile, @flashy_uber's Instagram fame only underscores how utterly unsurprising it is that paramedics have started leaning into the absurdity.
Leadership could have addressed this with foresight, maybe by leveraging actual community transport solutions or revisiting how these calls are handled. But no. Why break tradition when you can keep running staff and equipment into the ground, one frivolous call at a time? Honestly, it’s almost impressive how consistently short-sighted they are. If competency were a prerequisite for leadership, well, we’d probably be in the market for some fresh faces right about now. Alas: Send the Ambulance!
This makes up 30% of the Health Link referral failure rate.
Some Failure We Can Understand, But Not Really
Finally, the point that matters: 7,380 calls are bounced back to EMS due to clinical necessity. What that necessity is, we do not know. What was reported to us was:
"8-1-1 uses a broad clinical evaluation tool, and where required, will refer patients back to EMS when it is apparent that the patient's care needs are serious in nature and in need of immediate clinical care (and transport to an Emergency Department)."
Rightly or wrongly, of all the other areas of failure, this one can be somewhat understood. It doesn’t demean the EMS profession like the other three categories that are openly insulting to the EMS profession. These are patients who do have some sort of clinical need that may or may not need to be addressed by EMS. What’s of note here, though, is that this only makes up 22% of the failures and isn’t even the largest single reason for Health Link referral bounce-backs.
Conclusion: AHS—Over Promising, Under Delivering (As Always)
The big takeaway, though? At its inception, AHS touted some big numbers—40,000 calls a year off the backs of paramedics. So, nearing the program’s two-year mark, it would’ve been wonderful to see nearly 80,000 calls referred from the EMS system. Instead, what did we get? 11,543. Talk about typical AHS: over-promising and under-delivering. Remember how we alluded to "leadership’s" ability to skirt accountability? There it is in its truest form. If there was ever an example of these people’s incompetence on something that could’ve been a slam dunk, we found it.
But hey, don’t worry. We’ll be here, keeping AHS honest. Want to help us out? Donate to our GiveSendGo page, because apparently, if we want to fix Alberta’s EMS system, it’s going to take more than just yelling at AHS (though, don’t get us wrong, we’ll keep doing that too). Donate here.
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