EMS Quick Facts
- Alberta Health Services assumed responsibility for ground ambulance on April 1, 2009 and air ambulance on April 1, 2010.
- The provincial model of emergency medical services (EMS) in Alberta includes ground ambulance, air ambulance, inter-facility hospital transfers, and EMS dispatch.
- EMS serves more than 3.6 million Albertans in a large and diversified province that is more than 660,000 square kilometres.
- EMS dispatch handles about 400,000 ambulance events each year. Approximately 30 per cent of these are for inter-facility transfers (patient transfer from one health care facility to another), and 70 per cent are for 9-1-1 calls.
- Emergency medical services are provided using a hybrid model – direct delivery and contracted services. Ground ambulance service is provided from 151 communities across the province.
- STARS helicopters fly about 1,000 missions every year.
- Approximately 8,500 patients are transferred by fixed-wing plane.
- There are approximately 4,000 EMS practitioners in the AHS system (direct delivery and contracted services) across Alberta including Paramedics, Emergency Medical Technicians and Emergency Medical Responders.
- Alberta has about 550 ambulances, deployed out of about 200 ambulance stations.
