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28 Sep 2007

Melbourne's Metropolitan Ambulance Service awarded as Australia's best

The Service received six awards, including the overall Star Award for the innovation endorsed to be used by all other ambulance services in Australia.

The Star award recognised the development of the Victorian Ambulance Clinical Information System (VACIS), an portable electronic case sheet paramedics use to record patient information with the data available to be used for research.  

Other awards were received for technical capability and management practice.  These awards recognised improving cardiac arrest survival rates, chemical incident response capability, community education programs and drug harm minimisation.

MAS Chief Executive Officer, Greg Sassella, said that the awards were appropriate recognition of the level of ambulance care in Victoria.

"These awards are for a variety of developments within our organisation, but they are also a glowing endorsement of the hard work of our paramedics," Mr Sassella said.

The awards were presented at the Council of Ambulance Authorities (CAA) national conference on the Gold Coast this week. The CAA is the peak body representing the providers of ambulance services in the South Pacific Region.  The awards were introduced to acknowledge and encourage innovations from ambulance services throughout Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.