On Tuesday, April 7, 2020, CritiCall Ontario will begin working with Ornge to help hospitals access additional support for their emergency or critical care patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How It Works:

• The service will be a supplement to existing CritiCall Ontario processes.
• Hospitals will continue to contact CritiCall Ontario at 1-800-668-4357 when they require assistance caring for an urgent, emergent or life or limb patient.
• CritiCall Ontario will continue to arrange for a consultation from a specialty physician at the closest, most appropriate hospital.
• If at the end of the call:

 

1. the patient will remain at the hospital where he or she is receiving care, CritiCall Ontario will suggest that the physician can contact Ornge directly to request additional support from the Ornge Transport Medicine Physician (TMP) to help manage the patient, and at the physician’s request, CritiCall Ontario will call Ornge and put the referring site through to connect; OR
2. the patient requires transfer to an accepting hospital and the referring physician would like support while awaiting the arrival of transport, CritiCall Ontario will suggest that the physician can contact Ornge directly to request additional support from the TMP to help manage the patient.  At the physician’s request, CritiCall Ontario will call Ornge and put the referring site through to connect

*Please note: The referring physician and the Ornge TMP can work together to connect virtually if the patient site has convenient and immediate access to Ontario Health (OTN) emergency services-enabled equipment. Please contact Ontario Health (OTN) (details below) to assess if your site is enabled.
 
*The Ornge TMP may also be engaged by CritiCall Ontario to provide a primary consultation if the virtual care physicians from established virtual critical care programs at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (Regional Critical Care Response) and Health Sciences North (Virtual Critical Care)  are unavailable and require primary back-up as a result of increased demand for critical care services.
 
Patients Who Will Benefit:
This service is not specific to COVID-19 and can be utilized for patients with general acute and critical care needs.
 
Availability:

• This service will be offered by CritiCall Ontario for all cases.
• The Referring Physician will be put through to Ornge for continuation of assistance. 
• Ornge has one TMP and one back-up TMP available 24/7. Service will be subject to the availability of the TMPs and prioritized by Ornge in accordance with demand for TMP support at the time of the request.

 
If you have any questions or would like more information about this initiative, please contact:
 

• For Ornge-related questions or information: James MacDonald, Director, Communications and Public Affairs, 647.428.2107 or jmacdonald@ornge.ca 
• For CritiCall Ontario-related questions or information: Christine Moon, Manager of Communications & Client Relations, 289-396-7000 ext. 7558 or christine.moon@criticall.org
• For Ontario Health (OTN)-related questions or information: Amanda Willard, Provincial Lead, Emergency Services, 416.446.4110 x 4115 or awillard@otn.ca

 

• Healthcare Partners