COORDINATION
CritiCall Ontario Facts & Stats
Number of
cases:
Number of
patients transferred:
42,135
Dr. Desmond
Bohn
20
19,025
(2017/18)
Number of
patients not transferred
23,110
vice, however, the service is available to any
hospital-based physician in Ontario who is
caring for an urgent or emergent patient.
This can include obstetricians, pediatricians
and others.
CritiCall Ontario provides important
coordination in what can often be a chal-
lenging time; a time when every second
counts. In keeping with this, a Provincial
Medical Director and eight Associate Medi-
cal Directors are always available to support
call centre case facilitation by providing
assistance and direction for difficult cases
where escalation may be necessary.
The call centre is available 24/7/365
and staffed by CritiCall Ontario call
agents who collect basic physician and
patient information, including the imme-
diate medical concerns, and then contact a
specialist at another hospital who can pro-
vide a consultation and, if necessary, accept
the patient into their care.
Over the last year, CritiCall Ontario
facilitated more than 42,000 cases and, of
those, more than half did not require the
patient to be transferred to another hospi-
tal. The benefit, for those not transferred,
is the review of care plan and strategy, and
the provision of support as needed to the
referring physicians.
CritiCall Ontario relies on a number of
resources to make this type of case facilita-
tion possible, including the willingness of
specialists at Ontario hospitals to answer
the call and provide essential consultations
to their colleagues at smaller sites. CritiCall
Ontario also hosts the Provincial Hospital
Resource System (PHRS) which is available
DIALOGUE ISSUE 3, 2018
Median number of
calls made per case:
7
Median time to patient
acceptance:
28
minutes
to all acute care hospitals in Ontario and
provides an inventory of bed and resource
availability by hospital. This information
is used by CritiCall Ontario’s call centre to
assist with day-to-day case facilitation and
during times of local, regional or provincial
crisis when coordinated patient decanting
may be required.
Hospitals are responsible for meeting
CritiCall Ontario requirements included in
their hospital service accountability agree-
ments. These agreements require hospitals to:
1. Use CritiCall Ontario for all neurosurgery/
spine and out of country cases
2. Be responsive to requests for consultation
from CritiCall Ontario
3. Update the Critical Care Information Sys-
tem (CCIS) immediately for each admis-
sion and discharge to a critical care bed
and comply with the CCIS Data Collection
Policy
4. Update the PHRS four times per day (0800,
1200, 1600 and 2400)
5. Partner with CritiCall Ontario and other
hospitals within the LHIN and province to
establish on-call coverage for critical care
and related medical specialties.
For more information about CritiCall
Ontario visit www.criticall.org or contact a
Client Relations Manager by telephone at
(289) 396-7000.
MD