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Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI

WELCOME MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI

Feb 13, 2024|AEDR 2024 Vol. 12 Issue 1|Editor's Message

Years ago, when I worked in a 911 center, I don’t ever remember hearing the terms “vicarious trauma,” or “compassion fatigue.” Occasionally “burnout” was mentioned to describe how we felt after long stretches of intense work; although it mostly expressed years of exhaustion and time spent in the emergency dispatch center. Not much attention was given to the day-to-day stress and mental trauma that was happening along the way.

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WELCOME MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI

Jul 14, 2023|AEDR 2023 Vol. 11 Issue 1|Editor's Message

Occupational Identity is a term used to describe how a person sees themself as a worker. Researchers have studied how one’s identity at work affects not only one’s occupational success, but their attitudes, experiences, and emotions both inside and outside of the workplace. Our featured research article in this issue, written by Violet (Lisa) Rymshaw, PsyD, provides valuable insights on occupational identity among emergency dispatchers—a profession that is sometimes given short shrift within the realm of emergency services occupations.

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Assessing effectiveness of a new pre-arrival instructions for repositioning a prone patient on their back

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Chris Olola, PhD, Matt Miko, Anna Shmynets, Brett Patterson, Jeff Clawson, MD

May 02, 2023|Research Posters

There can be several barriers to performing effective CPR on patients who call 911 service for help. One of the most challenging barriers is repositioning a patient found by the caller in a prone position i.e., on his/her belly. Existing medical dispatch pre-arrival instructions (on Medical Priority Dispatch System [MPDS®] Protocols Panel C2) provide no specific scripted instructions for repositioning the patient from prone to supine.

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WELCOME MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI

Sep 19, 2022|AEDR 2022 Vol. 10 Issue 2|Editor's Message

The ‘Great Resignation,’ as it has been dubbed by many, did not spare emergency dispatch agencies. Indeed, emergency service agencies, including dispatch centers, may have been impacted even worse than most other employers. This is particularly unwelcome news, given the already long-standing staffing and recruiting difficulties in the profession. This phenomenon of employees leaving their jobs in large numbers appears to have started sometime after COVID-19 swept across the world in 2020. Several factors, including fear of being exposed to COVID, opportunities to work from home at a new job, and poor pa

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Monitoring Potential COVID-19 Cases Using the EIDS Tool

Christopher Olola, PhD, Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Matthew Miko, JD

Apr 20, 2022|Research Posters

The speedy spread of the global outbreak of COVID-19 called for rapid deployment of tools to monitor its trends. In January 2020, the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch® (IAED) released an official statement about the novel coronavirus with specific guidelines for our Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS)-user agencies to use the Emerging Infectious Disease Surveillance (EIDS) Tool for Sick Person (Protocol 26), Breathing Problems (Protocol 6), and other Chief Complaints where the caller offers information leading the emergency medical dispatcher (EMD) to suspect a respiratory-type illness.

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911 Caller-Described Heart Attack Symptoms

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Christopher Olola, PhD, Brett Patterson, Chris Davis, EMD-I, Joleen Quigg, Matthew Miko, JD, Richard Lindfors, NRP EMD-I, Jayme Tidwell, Kevin Pagenkop, ED-Q, John Lofgren, ED-Q, Jaci Fox, ENP, Jeff Clawson, MD

Apr 20, 2022|Research Posters

Research has showed that heart attacks present clinically with varying symptoms; and those symptoms are not always described by patients as chest pain or chest discomfort. Emergency Medical Dispatchers (EMDs) using the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS™) are trained to select the Chest Pain/Chest Discomfort Protocol for non-chest pain heart attack symptoms or classic heart attack complaint of chest pain/chest discomfort. Nevertheless, it is still unknown how often callers report heart attack symptoms other than chest pain/chest discomfort, including what specific words/phrases they use to describe

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Caller’s ability to understand “responding normally” vs. “completely alert” key question in a north American English version of an emergency medical dispatch protocol

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Christopher Olola, PhD, Chris Davis, EMD-I, Bryon Schultz, BA, Charles Gipson, MA, Jean Early, BS, Jeff Clawson, MD

Apr 20, 2022|Research Posters

The difficulty of evaluating the mental status, particularly alertness, is more pronounced in the medical dispatch context, where the Emergency Medical Dispatcher (EMD) must work through the eyes and ears of the caller, who is most likely a layperson. Determining true non-alertness and the level of its effects on outcome needs to be solved to perfect the interrogation and response-coding processes at dispatch.

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Welcome Message from the Editor-In-Chief

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI

Apr 04, 2022|AEDR 2022 Vol. 10 Issue 1|Editor's Message

2022 is beginning to shape up as a year of opportunity for us in the public safety and public health professions. As COVID-19 transforms from a pandemic to an endemic disease, emergency services should get a much-needed moment to reset and recharge. Indeed, we can use this well-deserved breather to focus on areas needing improvement in our field. One such area is how we manage responses to 911 medical calls for help. For many years, researchers and analysts have documented the need to reduce lights and siren response to medical calls for emergency assistance, warning of an overreliance on these ‘hot’ re

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Welcome Message from the Editor-in-Chief

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI

Dec 22, 2021|AEDR 2021 Vol. 9 Issue 3|Editor's Message

This issue of AEDR contains two very intriguing studies that, on the surface, seem completely unconnected. Yet many important issues in emergency dispatch are interdependent when one chooses to look a little closer. One study, conducted with the participation of focus groups representing some of Utah’s diverse communities, tells us how members of those communities make their decisions to call 911, why they may not call even when true emergencies present to them, and what factors most influence their decision-making to call or not to call, including a finding that we may not always be delivering the righ

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Welcome Message from the Editor-in-Chief

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI

Sep 07, 2021|AEDR 2021 Vol. 9 Issue 2|Editor's Message

What’s next for the First, First Responder? Since that term was first coined decades ago by Dr. Jeff Clawson in the nascent years of emergency medical dispatch development, much has changed. One of the biggest changes is the expanded role of the emergency telecommunicator in general—not simply the role of the emergency medical dispatcher (EMD), who was the subject of the earliest efforts to professionalize emergency telecommunicators with formal training and continuing education...

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