New mobile location technology is set to help NSW Ambulance Control Centre staff and paramedics deliver improved response times and faster services to sick and injured patients as part of the introduction of Advanced Mobile Location (AML) systems.
AML can pinpoint GPS coordinates more accurately than cell tower triangulation allows, particularly in remote areas of NSW. This increase in accuracy can mean the difference between life and death to someone who is seriously sick or injured.
Up until recently, when calls to Triple Zero (000) were put through to NSW Ambulance, the caller was asked the exact address of their emergency. For many reasons, such as being lost or having an accident, this can be a hard question.
Now, when a caller is using a mobile phone and they don’t know where they are, the AML system uses location data, with their GPS automatically sending coordinates to Triple Zero (000) and the responding Emergency Service Organisation (ESO).
“We just had a win with AML for a female patient who was having a mental health crisis. She could not give the call taker anything other than what she was wearing and eventually the house number she was out the front of, but not the street or location,” a control supervisor said.
“AML was utilised by the call taker, giving us a location of within 18 metres, and the police were able to successfully locate the patient.”
Partnership delivers improvements to Triple Zero (000) platform
Together with Telstra, DXC and SDSI, eHealth NSW developed the new AML system, along with associated upgrades to the NSW Ambulance data processing platform and computer aided dispatch (CAD) system.
The CAD system displays the location on a map to assist call takers. This enables the dispatcher to assign the most appropriate NSW Ambulance and other emergency services resources, if required.
NSW Ambulance call takers are highly trained and use various tools such as the Emergency + App and cell tower triangulation to assist in locating these callers. With over 1.2 million calls made each year, detecting the exact location of the sick or injured person is crucial.
Having recently completed final testing, the system is now live across all five NSW Ambulance Control Centres.
