News Article

CORNER BROOK — When Madison Muggridge presented her major project to classmates and invited guests earlier this year, she thought it was all over and done with.

The Pasadena native graduated from the geographical information system (GIS) applications specialist program at the College of the North Atlantic in June and immediately landed a contract job with the Model Forest of Newfoundland and Labrador and Department of Environment and Conservation.

But her major project, which focused on the impact an aging population will have on ambulance services in western Newfoundland, has continued to have a life of its own.

Officials at Western Health, which had provided raw data for Muggridge to analyze, were so impressed with her project that they have asked the 24-year-old to present it at PriFor 2011, a conference on primary heath-care research and partnerships taking place in St. John’s on Dec. 1 and 2.

“I never really expected it to go as far as it did,” said Muggridge. “I thought Western Health might like it and be excited about the things I found out, but I never thought they would ask me to attend this conference and it would go on from there.”

Muggridge got the idea for her project while driving home from school with her mom as they talked about finding a topic that went beyond merely applying GIS technology to some real-life scenario. When she discussed the idea of health care and the centralization of services in light of the aging population with her instructor, she soon found herself analyzing more than 4,000 ambulance dispatch records from Western Health during a year-and-a-half span.

When Muggridge — who also applied demographic information from Statistics Canada — was done with it, she had produced a more simplified account of the data that showed what the health authority might expect in terms of trends in how ambulances are used.

Western Health has been preparing for the impact an older population will have on ambulance services for the last six years, but it never did have the research put together to back up what it was anticipating.
Now, thanks to Muggridge’s project, it has a better handle on that.

“To see this in a graphic of what was happening, it certainly lends support to what we’re thinking is going to happen,” said David Buckle, Western Health’s regional director of paramedicine and medical transport.

Buckle is going to present some of Muggridge’s analysis to the health organization’s chief operating officers next week. He believes it will provide tangible proof that Western Health, and indeed other health authorities across the province, need to reconsider how it uses ambulances and whether there are times when other modes of transportation or the use of telemedicine might be a more feasible way to go.
For example, if a specialist can use telemedicine technology to assess a patient’s condition from a remote location, that could be one less ambulance transport needed. In addition to a savings cost, it would also mean that ambulance would remain available for an emergency response.

“One of the most impressive things is that there is an opportunity for us to change the way we’re doing business now,” said Buckle.

Tara Noseworthy, Western Health’s primary care manager, said Muggridge’s project fits perfectly with the emphasis on taking better advantage of available technologies and fostering more partnerships within the community to enhance the delivery of primary health-care services.

“One of the major principles is collaboration and capacity building,” said Noseworthy. “We are working with College of the North Atlantic, paramedicine and our community from a region-wide perspective. Increasing partnerships like this is the way to go.”

To prepare for the forum in St. John’s, Muggridge will be spending her extra time tweaking the presentation so it has more of a health-care focus, as opposed to being geared for an audience mostly interested in GIS applications. She’s looking forward to the challenge and is glad to be given the opportunity to take her school project to a new level.

“I’m glad I’ll get the chance to represent not only Western Health, but also the College of the North Atlantic and let people know about their program and what students graduate from it are capable of,” she said.

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BY Gary Kean
(Reprinted with permission of The Western Star - published September 12, 2011)