Challenge

Current pre-hospital care services in Toronto are overwhelmed by the increasing local population and increasing aging populations which results in, increase response times and overworked paramedics.

Outcome

Alphamedics proposes a culture shift towards a community-driven pre-hospital care model which leverages the infrastructure of a city’s bike-sharing program to create medical supply hubs throughout the city with the AlphaKit and AlphaHub.

Method(s):

• Literature Review

• Business Model Canvas

• Human-centred Design

My Role

We conducted literature review as a group, looking generally at problems paramedics are facing. I contributed sketches and ideas to our group sessions, I designed and helped present both of our major presentation, and I created and contributed writing for our final report.

Project Team

• Craig Harris

• Sandra El-Beyrouti

• Ruslan Hétu

• Daniela Trovar Medina

Our design studio, Crusada, was tasked with creating a corporeal sized design artifact to address the needs of Toronto Paramedics. In our exploration, we uncovered an intervention space that was both future-facing and very exciting. Our project was created in collaboration with the City of Toronto paramedics and OCAD University.

Process

Above is an overview of our research and design process. We began to explore with a literature review. Each of us individually familiarized ourselves with the field of para-medicine and looked for potential spaces for design intervention. From within those spaces we investigated, we focused our topic areas into questions for our site visit and interview with the Toronto paramedics.

During our visit to the paramedics facility (above), we took notes, observation, video and many pictures in order to better understand their day tot day. We then developed the journey map (below) to uncover the touchpoints that we would need to pay attention to. These activities helped us empathize with the paramedics and the situation they encounter everyday.

Concepts

P.a.l.s to Alphamedics

In the 2013 Annual Report of the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario, the percentage of calls using the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS) 2012 break down like this, not including courtesy calls:

ECHO and DELTA – 40 %
CHARLIE – 17 %
BRAVO – 26 %
ALPHA – 17 %

If we could target the bottom half of calls, we could then free up 43% of the calls they receive, we could significantly reduce their workload and free up some of their time because taking patients
to hospitals takes a lot of time. In the City of Toronto Paramedic Services 2016 Performance Measurement & Benchmarking Report, they report that in 2016 paramedics lost 225,908 hours transferring patients to hospitals.

This immense load of calls is having real consequences on the paramedics themselves. Again in the 2019 Toronto Paramedic Services Multi-year Staffing and Systems Plan Report, they are seeing an increase in PTSD claims. Paramedics experience very traumatic situations and it is important for them to have the support they need to cope. With all higher number of calls everyday, they barely get any kind of breaks to do paperwork, let alone process the trauma. In our visit with Martin they even highlighted the fact that they don’t get time to even eat lunch.

TPS is addressing this issue by increasing the number of ambulances and paramedics to meet the increase demand but what if there was a secondary provider of pre-hospital care? If we target the 43% of calls that do not necessarily require the complete training of a paramedic in the courtesy, alpha and bravo calls, we can potentially free up hundreds of hours for the system to better respond to the growing number of patients and the needs of their paramedics.

Introducing…

We provide a second option for pre-hospital care for low severity calls, responding with trained ALPHAMEDICS through the established infrastructure of
any city’s bike share program.

The KIT

The alpha medic’s kit is designed to specifically be contained within a metal box due to the benefits of the materials properties. Some of these benefits include: fire resistance, mold resistance, energy efficiency, sustainability, low weight and durability. Provided that our kit is within various contexts, the material was specifically and intentionally chosen to be able to sustain any condition. The kit has a front closure and is designed to be able to fit within a bike basket in case the kit requires to be on the go. The top lid of the kit incorporates lighting, should any medic require to operate during night shifts and/or in areas with limited lighting sources.

Our alphakit is well equipped to allow alphamedics to quickly respond to patients suffering from: severe bleeding, unconsciousness, CPR, rescue breathing, overdoses, hypothermia, choking and seizures. Each compartment within the kit has been designed to be able to carry specific items based on paramedics current equipment for the types of calls they will be responding to. The kit assembly and the kit hub interaction can be see depicted below.

The HUB

The alphamedics hub was designed to be adopted into the bikeshare system. The hub is a modular system that fits within the dimensions of the existing bike station docks. This versatile system can easily be implemented throughout the bike share system because it is designed to afford flexibility and adaptability.

Accessible and Convenient Stations
Hubs should be conveniently located and easy for alphamedics to find and use, at any time, in any season.

Designed for Safety
Hubs should be considered as part of a city’s traffic calming toolkit and located in areas with relatively high volumes of pedestrian traffic.

Operationally Feasible
Hub locations should be easy to reach and service. They should have adequate sun exposure, if
using solar power, and be accessible to maintenance vehicles.

Enhance the Pedestrian Realm
Hubs should be placed in ways that enhance the quality of the surrounding pedestrian environment.

Reflection

I really enjoyed working on this project because we got to explore the potential future of pre-hospital care. It meant a lot to the project to be able to interact with our stakeholder as much as we did but the project would of benefited greatly from more interactions. One of the biggest limitations was that paramedics were not included the entire time in a co-design process. With such a sensitive subject as pre-hospital care having the paramedics inputs is vital. I thought our final project is quite a viable solution and potentially one that we can purse into development or maybe even a pilot research project. If we were to continue with it, it would require us to involve not only the paramedics but the general public as well to be able to get a full picture of the impact and reaction to this sort of emergency care.