City EMS earns high marks for commitment to care

By Lethbridge Herald on May 25, 2023.

Primary care paramedics with Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services, Christopher Fitzgerald and Amanda Neufeld check a stretcher at the beginning of their shift Thursday morning at the westside Fire Station No. 5. Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – apulido@lethbridgeherald.com

Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services has attained the Emergency Medical Services Accreditation Certification from Accreditation Canada, highlighting the commitment of excellence in care and organizational performance.

Accreditation logistics officer for the Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services, Chris Fahey said part of their contract with Alberta Health Services is to have accreditation, and Accreditation Canada comes to Lethbridge every four years to check everything they are doing and how they are doing. 

“They were here Feb. 27 to Mar. 2 and they went through basically everything. Our whole service, how we do safety, how we retain our staff, how we maintain our ambulances, how we keep our ambulances, how we make sure narcotics are safe and all our medications, how we deal with ethics, as well as how we clean as infection prevention controls have been hot topics,” said Fahey. 

He said there are more than 300 standards they have to meet, and his job is to make sure they meet all those standards.

“They interviewed our staff, they asked them lots of questions and lots of times they asked me to leave the room while they were doing this so I wouldn’t have any influence over our staff, and we did very well. There are different levels of accreditation and we’ve got an Accreditation with Commendation which is one of their highest levels, so we’re very happy with that rate of over 97 per cent,” said Fahey. 

He said he believes it is very good for the community to know there is a third party that makes sure they are doing things the way they should, and that it has been proven they are one of the best. 

Faye said that in fact, it was highlighted by the surveyors how good their ethics framework was. He said they were so impressed by it that they have used it as example for the rest of the country. 

“They have actually taken that and gone to other organizations who are struggling with their ethics framework and said you should use Lethbridge’s,” said Fahey. 

He said they were also impressed by their high-performance CPR initiative, especially with their stats. 

“They were blown away with our stats of how well we’re doing with our CPR and getting resuscitation patients that previously may not have come back,” said Fahey. 

He said he is very proud of the level of commitment from everyone and how it is reflected by the accreditation results. 

“It feels great, it definitely showed the hard work that our staff does and it’s showing. My family lives here I’m very happy to say that if a Lethbridge ambulance shows up, I know we will be taken care of,” said Fahey. 

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