Time-to-dispatch in a 911 center continues to be a topic of much discussion in public safety. This study represents a first attempt to classify a subset of time-todispatch, call prioritization time, the time required to gather critical information prior to dispatching the call. The study characterizes call prioritization time in two Police dispatching agencies by determining overall median call prioritization time for all Chief Complaints (CCs) in the agencies studied, then by determining specific call prioritization times for the top five most commonly-used CCs...
This study examined the distribution of the MPDS® Chief Complaint protocols and determinant codes assigned by the EMD as eligible for nurse triage, as well as the distribution of the Chief Complaint protocols contained in the Emergency Communications Nurse System™ (ECNS™) secondary nurse triage process, as determined by the emergency communications nurse (ECN). Protocol distribution was also examined by patient gender. This study characterized protocol and gender distributions to provide a better understanding of the types of patients and their associated...
Diabetes mellitus is a leading cause of human disease, with 25.8 million Americans affected. It is estimated that 7 million (27%) of these patients are still formally undiagnosed. Diabetes can cause chronic or sudden signs and symptoms, which often result in observers calling 911 for assistance. The Emergency Dispatcher's interpretation of these calls affects dispatch triage and pre-arrival patient care. To determine the relationship between the EMDs' assigned Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS) determinant codes and patient severity indicators as determined by paramedic (or EMT) on-scene...
Emergency dispatch is a relatively new field, but the growth of dispatching as a profession, along with raised expectations for help before responders arrive, has led to increased production of and interest in emergency dispatch research. As yet, no systematic review of dispatch research has been conducted. This study reviewed the existing literature and indicated gaps in the research as well as potentially fruitful extensions of current lines of study. Dispatch-related terms were used to search for papers in research databases (including PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, EMCARE, SciSearch, PsychInfo...
911 centers receive a wide variety of calls for police-related incidents. Using the Police Priority Dispatch System (PPDS®), a 911 Emergency Police Dispatcher (EPD) categorizes each incident with a specific Chief Complaint (CC) and prioritizes the case using a systematic alpha-numeric coding matrix. The wide variation in CC types and specific codes assigned can profoundly affect staffing and resource deployment decisions made by law enforcement agencies. However, the frequency of specific call types and priority levels in the PPDS has not been studied formally to date. The objective of...
Over 25 years ago I started my first 911 center job in a large urban system in California. Our communication center was a secondary Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), and as such, all 911 callers reporting a medical or fire emergency were transferred to our center from the 911 calltakers in the primary PSAP agency. With the rather auspicious title of System Status Controller, my primary role was to direct the dispatching and deployment of paramedic ambulances in the system. Most importantly, I was tasked with tracking the unit response time of every paramedic vehicle dispatched to each...
