The Ministry of Health updated the COVID-19 Screening Tool for Paramedics on Thursday August 26, 2021. The new tool is now in effect for paramedics and Central Ambulance Communications Centres (CACC). The Ontario Base Hospital Group has also updated the Ontario Paramedic Clinical Guide app to reflect the revised screening tool.

COVID-19 Screening Tool for Paramedics – version 2.0

Outil de dépistage du COVID-19 – version 2.0

The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting almost everything in our lives and clinical practice … even medication supplies!
Increased demand is fueling medication shortages in some cases. In other cases, the active ingredient is not available locally or manufacturing has slowed down.
All of these lead to the same results: medication is harder to supply.

Patients can now have one support person accompanying them at an Ottawa Hospital (TOH) emergency room (ER).

On August 16, 2021, TOH updated its visitor restrictions. The Ottawa Hospital is currently in low visitor restrictions as part of the hospital’s ongoing response to COVID-19. 

Paramedics are encouraged to inform family and loved ones of patients who would benefit from a support person that they may go to the TOH ER.

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Sara-Pier Piscopo has joined the Regional Paramedic Program for Eastern Ontario as a new Associate Medical Director.

Dr. Piscopo is a pediatric emergency physician with a strong background in prehospital and transport medicine. She completed her fellowship in Prehospital and Transport Medicine (PTM) at the University of Ottawa, where she developed a keen understanding of EMS systems and care delivery beyond the hospital setting.

RPPEO and the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Ottawa Hospital have a new collaboration where Eastern Ontario paramedics can view Grand Rounds for CME credit!

In the most recent Grand Rounds, hear about these controversial guidelines: 

Considerations for Paramedics Managing Patients during the COVID-19 Pandemic

 Updated Guidance in force as of Feb 22, 2021

The provincial Medical Advisory Committee (MAC) on Monday, February 22, 2021 released its  latest update on considerations for paramedics during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This memo replaces both the May 6th, 2020 and the January 4th, 2021 considerations documents and memos.

Feb 22, 2021 MAC Memorandum

MAC's Summary of Changes

We're eager to share the new 2019-2020 RPPEO Annual Report! Watch your email for the electronic report this week. We're putting the finishing touches on it and will be delivering it to the Ministry of Health this week, in plenty of time to meet the deadline tomorrow.

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It's a new certification year! The annual maintenance of certification (MOC) deadline for paramedics to meet requirements for 2021 re-certification is behind us!

With nearly all requirements available to complete online, it was down to the wire for more paramedics than ever this year. Nearly 20% had not completed educational requirements by mid-January.

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Our first Bite-sized Training held on July 17 was a success. Frank walked users through many of the features and lesser known functions of the MedicLEARN platform, which we also provide to our base hospital partners.

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We're now diverting Ottawa General Hospital 911 patches to our new on-call patch physicians.

You may recall that we originally set up a new on-call system to have a dedicated physician taking calls for consultation from the COVID-19 auxiliary medical directive implementation project.

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