About the Centre
Who We Are
The Sunnybrook Centre for Prehospital Medicine is an organization committed to excellence in the delivery of specialty medicine that occurs before patients arrive in Ontario hospitals. We are associated with the Trauma, Emergency, and Critical Care Program at our parent organization, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, an academic health sciences centre affiliated with the University of Toronto.
We operate several major programs on behalf of the Ontario Ministry of Health & Long Term Care. First, we are the regional base hospital serving most of south-central Ontario, providing medical oversight and leadership for paramedics and other first responders (i.e. firefighters), including connecting a paramedic who is managing a patient in the field to an emergency physician through a telephone or radio patch. In 2009, Sunnybrook became the operator of Ontario’s Emergency Medical Assistance Team (EMAT), a 56-bed mobile medical field unit that can be deployed anywhere in Ontario within 24 hours. The team is comprised of 150 members who are physicians, nurses, medical radiation technologists, psychosocial health professionals, paramedics and logistics specialists. In 2014, Sunnybrook became the operator of Wallaceburg Central Ambulance Communication Centre (CACC). The team is responsible for medical communication for Lambton County and Chatham-Kent EMS as well as 22 fire services in the region.
Our Accomplishments
We are very proud of all that we have accomplished over the many years Sunnybrook has been leading prehospital medicine. Some highlights include:
- Leading partner in developing practice standards for paramedicine in Canada;
- Published award-winning research in prehospital medicine;
- Developed a web-enabled quality assurance system that is used to audit every patient interaction for compliance to standards;
- Completed several successful deployments of the EMAT team since assuming responsibility;
- Partnered with Emergency Medical Services to provide on-site health services for mass-gathering events (i.e. Papal visit, large rock concerts, street festivals).
Key Statistics
- 30 years of experience leading prehospital medicine;
- Responsible for the medical care of over 400,000 patients annually;
- Provide medical direction, annual education and quality assurance for over 2000 paramedics, 3000 firefighters and other first aid responders in Ontario;
- Responsible for the ongoing readiness and deployment of a 56-bed field hospital to anywhere in Ontario.
