Essay Example on Ontario's Patient Care: A Century of Quality Care

Introduction

Over the century, providing quality care has always been a priority to every healthcare provider who intends to achieve a high patient satisfaction level. Patient care in Ontario is perceived to be the best across the globe; however, it has undergone numerous improvements and changes over the years (Perkins et al., 2015). In Ontario, Canada, patient care was designed and developed on the bases that it is an essential good that every individual access fairly and equally. In the past, Ontario had a less developed form of patient care that did not involve the use of various technologies such as cardiac monitors to fulfill the population needs. Lack of technology also reduced the scope of care and practice for the paramedics in the Ontario healthcare system. The healthcare workers had a hard time tackling and treating the cases that required a more improved technology to monitor and treat. For instance, cardiovascular cases. However, due to the occurrence of various challenges that threatened to destabilize the Ontario healthcare system that was depended on by most individuals, the healthcare system decided to adopt a more improved technology. Some of the challenges that resulted to the adoption of a more improved technology include rising demand for quality care, rising demand for healthcare services, and the increasing cost of patient care. The design and adoption of technology in Ontario patent care helped to enhance the scope of care and practice for the paramedics in the Ontario healthcare system. The technology improved the Ontario healthcare capability to offer some of the crucial services such as basic life support, advanced life support, and also attended to the patients within a short time. Over the years, the Ontario healthcare system has been working towards reimaging how hospital care and pre-hospital care are provided using advanced technology. The main aim of most hospitals across Ontario is to create a new model that can solve the future and the current needs of the Ontario population. This paper intends to discuss the impact of technology, particularly on pre-hospital care for paramedics in Ontario, Canada.

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Impact of Technology on Pre-Hospital Care for Paramedics

Helps to Reduces Mortality Rate

Adopting advanced technologies such as cardiac monitors and ambulances by the pre-hospital paramedics has played an essential role in reducing the mortality rate of patients in Ontario, Canada. Before adopting the current medical technology, the paramedics had a very hard time providing emergency care and stabilizing patients before taking them to hospital. Some of the essential technologies that the pre-hospital paramedics lacked include the basic life support technology and advanced support systems. Lack of these key technologies is perceived to have increased the mortality rate of critical emergency patients by approximately 50%; however, since their introduction in Ontario pre-hospital, the mortality rate has reduced significantly (Perkins et al., 2015).

The paramedics also had a hard time communicating with the healthcare facilities and keeping track records of the patients due to lack of the base hospital support system, which facilities communication and interactions between the healthcare professional and the paramedics. This made it hard for the paramedics to consult the healthcare professionals on various medical situations that they encountered in the field. For instance, it was hard for the paramedics to consult the doctors in the type of care they should offer the patient before taking him to the hospitals. Other technologies such as ambulance and stretcher also played an essential role in reducing the molarity rate since they reduced the time taken by paramedics to reach the patient and the time taken to reach the hospitals. Ambulance services also provide crucial technological components that help support and offer care to the patient before taking him or her to a hospital. Initially, before introducing such key technologies, there were high cases of delayed care, resulting to numerous fatalities across Ontario.

Improves the Quality of Care

The introduction of the medical technologies in pre-hospital care helped to increase the quality of care offered to the patient. Healthcare technologies such as basic life support, advanced care support, and the cardiac support system are among the key technologies that have helped to improve healthcare quality. These technologies usually play an essential role in stabilizing the patient's condition before being taken to any healthcare facility. For instance, whenever the paramedics encounter cardiac arrest patients, they usually put them under a cardiac monitor and a basic life support system. These technologies usually help to ensure that the patient has the right vitals and is stable enough before being handed over. On the other hand, the paramedic's technologies usually create a good treatment foundation for the healthcare workers based in the hospitals. This is mainly because the patient is usually brought in a stable state that is easier to treat or save the patient life. Initially, before introducing the technologies in the frontline pre-hospital care for paramedics, the patients usually brought by the paramedics into the healthcare facilities in a deteriorated state or condition, thus making it hard for the hospital healthcare providers to treat and offer quality care. This significantly affected the morality and reputation of the pre-hospital paramedics, whose main role was to ensure that the patients were monitored and presented to the healthcare facilities in a stable state that is easy to treat and manage.

Increased Scope of Practice and Care

The introduction of the new technologies in pre-hospital care helped to increase the scope of practice and care for the healthcare personnel. Initially, before the introduction of the technologies in patient care, most of the healthcare workers were relaxant to expand their scope of practice, for instance, by seeking further education and experience. Most healthcare workers felt satisfied and comfortable with the scope of practice and care that they were delegated. In most cases, the comfort and satisfaction was caused by lack of complexities when performing the jobs. For instance, there were no machines, such as the cardiac monitor to operate. However, after the Ontario healthcare system introduced the technologies in pre-hospital care, most healthcare workers had to increase their scope of practice and care to fit in the new working environment. For instance, most healthcare workers had to enroll in new educational programs that allowed them to fit in the new environment. The paramedics were required to have a wider scope of practice and care to ensure that they can tackle any healthcare cases or situations that they encountered in the field, and they were able to operate all the machines introduced in pre-hospital. Increasing the scope of practice care also helped to increase the quality of care that the healthcare workers provided to the patients since they were conversant with all the technologies provided.

Improved Operational Efficiency and Improved Coordination and Communication

The use of healthcare technology in pre-hospital care has significantly improved efficiency in delivering quality care and services. Healthcare technologies such as the ambulance and the basic life support usually minimize the amount of time, resources, and workforce required to attend to a particular patient. Before the introduction of the healthcare technologies in pre-hospital care, attending to a particular patient would take hours before completion, thus delaying the delivery of services. Implementation of healthcare technologies in pre-hospital also enhanced coordination and communication between the paramedics and the hospital healthcare providers. For instance, when the paramedics are delivering or handing in a patient to the hospital healthcare providers, the healthcare technologies enables the healthcare providers to share information concerning the patient effectively.

Conclusion

Providing quality care has always been the priority of most paramedics in Ontario, Canada. This has motivated the pre-hospital healthcare providers to adopt new technologies that increase efficiency in the healthcare platform. Some of the technologies that are currently adopted and used by the healthcare providers include ambulance, basic life support, and advance life support system. The introduction of this of the technologies in pre-hospital care has had several impacts on paramedics. Some of these impacts include first; it has increased the scope of practice and care. Secondly, it increases the scope of practice and care. Thirdly, it has reduced the pre-hospital mortality rate.

References

Perkins, G. D., Lall, R., Quinn, T., Deakin, C. D., Cooke, M. W., Horton, J., ... & Smyth, M. (2015). Mechanical versus manual chest compression for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (PARAMEDIC): a pragmatic, cluster randomised controlled trial. The Lancet, 385(9972), 947-955.