“In many workplaces, when a manager walks into a room, hushed tones are adopted. In Amir’s case, he is welcomed as a peer who is also a leader. There is no greater compliment.”
Todd Onsorge, BCEHS Clinical Operations Manager for Columbia Shuswap, wrote these words of his colleague Amir Allana, in nominating him for the BCEHS Tom St. Laurent Leadership Memorial Award.
This award was created in memory of Tom St. Laurent, a highly respected paramedic with over 30 years of service who passed away suddenly in 2015. It’s given annually to an employee in recognition of their above and beyond approach to leadership, embodying the caring, compassionate, and supportive nature Tom was known for.
Amir, who is the Clinical Operations Manager for Kelowna, received the Tom St. Laurent award earlier this year, along with Interfacility Emergency Medical Call Taker Genta Balla.
As Clinical Operations Manager, Amir supports the provision of paramedic services in the greater Kelowna area. Amir explains, “that means everything from ensuring that there’s enough staff, to ensuring staff are supported in their own health and wellness, to making sure they get paid, to also making sure that the quality of patient care is high.”
He’s also quick to note, “I don’t do any of those things alone. I have a great team around me that helps. I’m more of a facilitator or orchestrator of all these things.”
Like many paramedics, Amir was first drawn to the field out of a desire to serve others.
“I really value being there for people when they need it,” he says.
He did consider other service-focused career paths like social work and nursing, but ultimately chose paramedicine because of how rapidly the field is evolving. Whereas other medical professions are more firmly established, the role paramedics play in the health-care system is still growing and changing.
“I saw paramedics getting their Master’s and getting their PhDs and working on bigger system issues in health care that paramedicine was helping be a part of,” he says, “like community paramedicine and referral pathways for patients with less urgent health needs. I intentionally chose to be a paramedic because there was an opportunity for change.”
Now as a leader at BCEHS, Amir is part of making these changes happen, work that’s satisfying even though it usually isn’t fast.
“My favorite part of the job is to slowly chip away at an issue that has caused an inefficiency, or that’s bothered frontline practitioners for a long time, or that has been identified by patients,” he says. “Often you chip away at it slowly over many months, and then suddenly one day there’s a change that transforms the entire thing because of the efforts that we put in.”
This type of methodical, long-term work was a big shift from the immediate care Amir provided during emergencies as a paramedic.
“I’ve learned to appreciate it’s so different from a 911 call, where you get there and you see the pain and you either get to solve it or not, and all that happens within a period of thirty to ninety minutes,” he says. “I had to retrain my brain to see big issues and analyze them and then patiently try to fix them over the long-term. I’ve begun to really enjoy seeing the results because they impact a lot more people.”
Amir is particularly passionate about professionalization of paramedicine and expanding the role of paramedics in providing different forms of care to patients, for example those with complex care plans and those with less urgent emergency events.
“When we think about paramedics, I’d like people to start thinking about them more as mobile community-based health providers that also treat emergencies,” he says.
Amir has helped support work at BCEHS to expand care pathways for patients who have less urgent health needs and may be better supported through a facility like an Urgent and Primary Care Centre (UPCC) or through community-based mental health or substance use resources, rather than going to a hospital emergency department.
He’s been part of expanding the use of Link and Referral Units (LARUs) to the Kelowna area. Staffed by paramedics who are specially trained to work with patients with less urgent medical needs, LARUs can transport patients who are able to walk on their own to the hospital as well as to urgent and primary care centres (UPCCs) and other community resources as appropriate.
“The goal is to provide the right care, in the right place, at the right time for the right person,” he says.
Amir notes that less than half of calls paramedics attend are acute, life-threatening emergencies; and emergencies like heart attacks, strokes and major trauma make up an even smaller number of calls. A majority of calls are for health concerns that aren’t immediately life-threatening and often include those related to chronic illness, substance use disorders and mental illness.
“We built our system for the small number of calls that involve life or death emergencies, but to be really patient-centred, we need to create a system that serves 100 per cent of patients,” he says.
Todd Onsorge’s Tom St. Laurent Award nomination for Amir notes that he’s been involved in many large improvement projects that have shaped BCEHS, including the expansion of paramedic scope of practice. However, when asked what part of his job he’s most proud of, Amir returns the people he works with.
“I really enjoy the little things,” he says. “Connecting with my team, watching people learn, seeing people receive feedback and work on things they’re trying to improve and seeing them grow as individuals.”
When Amir got the call from BCEHS Chief Operations Officer Jennie Helmer that he’d won, he was speechless.
“I do struggle with recognition,” he admits. “I’d much rather put my head down and just work on the next thing.”
However, he ultimately found the award has validated his people-centric approach to leadership.
“I always try to be compassionate, principled and flexible,” he says. “Getting this support from the organization helps validate that approach and stay focused on our staff and patients.”
