Going International

A new group aims to provide a forum for countries to learn from one another’s successes and mistakes in EMS.

By Jenifer Goodwin, associate editor

In 1999, Penny Price left Canada to become executive director of the National Ambulance Service of Qatar in the Middle East. Though there was limited ambulance service in the capital city, her role was to build an EMS system to serve the entire nation.

Over the course of a decade, she helped the national ambulance service grow from six ambulances and a staff of 60 to 60 ambulances, 25 interfacility transfer vehicles and a staff of more than 700. In the process of building a national EMS system from the ground up, Price sought out best practices from around the world and borrowed ideas from several countries.

“The United Kingdom was doing great things in quality assurance and integrating into the health system,” says Price, who is now back in Calgary working as health integration manager for Alberta Health Services EMS. “A result of EMS being embedded into the health system is that they’re able to look at outcomes better than the rest of us..."

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