Changes to ambulance triaging for doctors

The Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) will shortly be changing the way that certain registered Health Care Practitioners (HCPs) calls are triaged when QAS attendance is requested through Triple-Zero (000). 

What’s changing?
The QAS has for many years utilised a category system for managing Triple-Zero calls received from HCPs. In short, this category system has allowed HCPs to rapidly move through the QAS triage system. While useful for some practitioners, this process can lead to both the over and under triaging of calls. Given the increasing demand for ambulance attendance, and the requirement to appropriately triage and prioritise requests, an adjustment to this process will be implemented from Tuesday 10 August 2021..

• Doctors, Registered Nurses (RNs), excluding Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs), and paramedics will continue to use the QAS category system. There will be no changes to the process for these medical professionals.
• RNs from RACFs and all other HCPs (non-designated HCPs) will commence being managed through an existing QAS triage system, which is internationally accredited and implemented around the world.

This change will see non-designated HCPs asked several additional triage questions to allow the QAS to ensure patient safety and understand the clinical presentation of patients. This process will assist the QAS to ensure an appropriate and timely response is provided to all cases, particularly those coming from HCPs.

Whenever possible, a clinical person such as a doctor or RN should make the call to Triple Zero. If a non-clinical staff member requests an ambulance (for example an administration officer or receptionist), the QAS Emergency Medical Dispatcher will ask to speak to the clinician on scene.