Victorian Health Services Performance - Ambulance Services

Brief description

The Victorian Agency for Health Information (VAHI) is Victoria’s end-to-end health data agency, delivering trusted information to inform better decisions to improve the health and wellbeing of Victorians.

As a division of the Department of Health (the department), we ensure that data and information on the quality, safety and performance of Victoria's healthcare system are readily available to health services, government departments and agencies, researchers and the Victorian community.

Ambulance Victoria provides care and transport for patients requiring urgent and non-urgent medical assistance.

VAHI reports on ambulance performance across Victoria, including data on life-threatening and time critical incidents.

About ambulance Priority codes - When a Triple Zero (000) operator receives a call for an ambulance, they immediately prioritise the call on a scale from 0 (most urgent/highest priority) to 9 (less urgent/lower priority). Results presented here are for Priority codes 0 and 1 only.

About ambulance Dispatch codes - The priority assigned to a Triple Zero (000) call determines the urgency of ambulance dispatch. Dispatch codes range from 1 (most urgent) to 3 (less urgent). Priority 0 and Priority 1 incidents are usually assigned Dispatch code 1, requiring a 'lights and sirens' response. Results presented here are for Dispatch code 1 only.

Note - The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant, enduring effects on both the volume and type of demands placed upon ambulance services both from a patient perspective as well as overall operating environment. As such, care needs to be taken when assessing results and comparing to prior periods.

Full description

Life-threatening Incidents (Priority Code 0)
High Priority, time critical incidents (Priority code 1)
Lights and sirens (Dispatch code 1)