Introduction

Queensland Ambulance Service has or the years remained one of the reputable emergency care providers in Australia. QAS has been able to provide domestic care services between responses. In addition, QAS has been ensuring that the paramedics working in rural/remote hospital affect responses/call outs. However, these operations have not been effective. This is because of apparent of possible challenges as the shortage of workforce having the paramedics being one of the most under-utilized professions in the rural and remote health care (FitzGerald, Tippett, Schuetz & Pollard 2008, p.780). The other observable reason behind the ineffectiveness of the QAS in providing health care in remote hospital is that ideally paramedics were placed to give support services such as nursing, medical, and allied health services (Reeve, Pashen, Mumme, De La Rue & Cheffins 2008, p.370). Therefore, the following project plan illustrates how operations management and effective utilization of paramedics in rural and remote areas will be perfected at QAS. More essentially, the project aims at improving working in the rural/remote hospital between responses.

Background of QAS

QAS (Queensland Ambulance Service) is the primary provider of out-of-hospital ambulance transport and emergency care in the State of Queensland Australia. Observably, QAS is one of the largest ambulance services in the whole world. QAS provides the highest quality of emergency care and transport services. QAS covers approximately 1.77million square kilometers (Fitzpatrick & Pawson 2014, p.597). Some of the services provided by QAS include specialized transport services, emergency response, coordination of aero-medical services, pre-hospital patient care, and inter-hospital transfers (Lees & Elcock 2008, p.24). QAS also provided community services such as community education and injury prevention. In addition, the division engages in pre-hospital research to improve its paramedic services. Services provided by QAS are given from different sites. Some of these sites include seven educational centers, one special operations centre, and five community helicopter providers. This project is needed to improve the provision of ambulance services in the local/remote hospital. This is in the response numerous complaints from clients about the poor of the ambulance services given (O’Meara, Tourle & Rae 2012, p.488). By the end of implementing this project, it is expected that the level of ambulance services would be improved in the remote/local hospitals within response calls.

Project definitions

The project entails improving operations at QAS. Since there have been redundancies in the provision of health services, the project will develop a primary health care model. The project will aim at improving ambulance services in each respective state. The project aims to deal with some of the inefficiencies brought by the paramedics. One of these inefficiencies is that most of the paramedics will be engaged in unsanctioned expanded activities. The project depends on the paramedics to make it successful. Either a health care provider or a medical officer guides these activities (Griffin, Watt, Wallis, Shields & Kimble 2014, p.9). The project thereby aims at dealing with the shortage of the paramedics in the rural and remote hospitals. This will involve hiring more paramedics. In addition, the shortage of paramedics will be dealt with having alternate models of service delivery to rural and remote communities that will also address workforce shortages. The project has in mind that there an opportunity exists to develop educational pathways for paramedics to integrate and acquire skills and knowledge important to the context of practice for their communities (Nielssen, Dear, Staples, Dear, Ryan, Purtell & Titov 2015, p.134). Altogether, the project aims to deal high profiles indicating higher than average incidents of chronic diseases, injury, and accidents in rural and remote locations (Rashford & Isoardi 2010, p.30). The project is also programmed to reduce the amount of time taken before the paramedics respond to call-outs. Patients complain that the paramedic take long time to come with their ambulance to pick a patient, or instance (O’Meara, Tourle & Rae 2012, p.488). The project also aims at increasing the number of emergency vehicles to foster movement of the paramedics. The community paramedics will be mandated to provide support in the local community to ensure that the maximum number of volunteer ambulance officers responds to ambulance calls as a compliment to the volunteer operations (Wallis, Watt, Franklin & Kimble 2015, p.9).

Therefore, the definitions of the project can be summarized as follows:

1. Provision of training to the paramedics
2. Provision of additional education to the paramedics
3. Increase the number of paramedics to deal with the rampant shortage
4. Increase the number of emergency vehicles
5. Increase the responsiveness of the paramedics

Benefits of the project

One of the benefits of the project is that the problem of the shortage of paramedics will be dealt with. This is because more paramedics will be trained to join the service. The other benefit that will be enjoyed by QAS is that the paramedics would have added skills to deal with people in the remote areas. This will be enabled because the parents would go for extra training to be equipped with extra skills (Poplin, Pollack, Griffin, Day-Nash, Peate, Nied, Gulotta & Burgess 2015, p.87). The other observable benefit that will be accrued by QAS is that it will be able to have professional paramedics. This is drawn from the fact that the paramedics joining the service would have the superb educational background. The education the paramedics will give them will ensure that that they exhibit the highest level of professionalism. Quality of emergency services will increase in the local/remote hospitals. This will ultimately increase the loyalty of the clients.  The other observable advantage is that there will be increase call-outs as the number of emergency vehicles will be increased.

 

 

 

Gantt chart for the project

Get problems with QAS

Introduce training

Decide type of training

Introduce additional education

Give the needed education first

Put the training into practice

Set on how to evaluate the  performance

Evaluate

Record the results

Wk3

Wk1

Wk13

W12

Wk4

Wk7

W9

Wk10

Figure 1: Gantt chart for the project

Brief explanation

The project will take 13weeks. The first 1 week would be used to observe the areas that need improvement. The following week will be used to supplement the training of the paramedics. On the 3th week, education will be introduced. The paramedics will be given five weeks to complete the educational upgrade. However, the paramedics from week 4 will be expected to put the learning into practice until the program would be terminated. Evaluation of the performance or quality will be then done from there up to the 13^th week.

Risks

One of the probable risks is that the paramedics may refuse to change according to the given standards. Some of the paramedics will cling to the old ways of doing things. This will be counteracted by talking and convincing them first on the importance of the project. The other risk is that more shortages of the paramedics can be experienced since more paramedics might be forced to leave the service in the name of getting more knowledge (Blake, Dissanayake, Hay & Brown 2014, p.135). Economic risks regarding costs may be experienced trying to change the operations of the organization to make it efficient. This will be counteracted by the ability of the organization having other means to raise funds. The other risk is that although the service depends on volunteers, it still has to supply the equipment, equipment, and training requirements. The other risk is rejection whereby the paramedics ought to refuse the implementation.

Quality and skill analysis:

The evaluation of the project will be done through value-based methodologies. This will look at the value of the project to the people and the organization. The evaluation will also be product-based. This will involve looking at the services that will be given to the company (Fein, Quinn, Watt, Nichols, Kimble & Cuttle 2014, p.11). Research would be carried to the community to get the categorical data that would be used to evaluate the performance and quality of the ambulance service provided by QAS. Evaluating the level of job satisfaction with the paramedics can also help in evaluating the quality of job. This will be user-based measuring.

Personal assessment

One of the strength of the project is that it enjoys embracement from the paramedics. The opportunity is to make QAS the primary provider of ambulance services in Australia. One weakness is that it is going to take short time. This can make the paramedics not understand every concept of the project. One threat to the project is external competitors. Other firms delivering ambulance services in Australia are also implementing the same type of project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

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Nielssen, O, Dear, B, Staples, L, Dear, R, Ryan, K, Purtell, C, & Titov, N 2015, ‘Procedures for risk management and a review of crisis referrals from the MindSpot Clinic, a     national service for the remote assessment and treatment of anxiety and depression’,            BMC Psychiatry, 15, pp. 304-309, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 18 March 2016.

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Poplin, G, Pollack, K, Griffin, S, Day-Nash, V, Peate, W, Nied, E, Gulotta, J, & Burgess, J      2015, ‘Establishing a proactive safety and health risk management system in the fire    service’, BMC Public Health, 15, 1, pp. 1-12, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 18 March 2016.

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