Risk management is an area of critical importance for emergency services and public safety agencies, including emergency communication centers. However, almost no information currently exists regarding litigation against, or involving, emergency dispatch. The primary objective in this study was to characterize the most common types of adverse events, actions, and omissions of action that lead to lawsuits against emergency dispatchers and their agencies. The study was a systematic literature review...
Sick Person (Specific Diagnosis) is one of the most commonly used Chief Complaint Protocols in the Medical Priority Dispatch System™. Within the Sick Person Protocol, the 26-A-1 coding represents a group of patients with no specific identifiable complaint. This vague categorization presents a problem for dispatch systems and EMS responders alike, since so little is captured about the patient's true condition. The objective of this study was to determine whether changing the order of the "No" answer choice on the...
In medical emergencies involving out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCAs), bystanders reasonably but sometimes incorrectly expect a call to 911 will result in a dispatcher guiding the caller through the steps of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). For the public safety answering points (PSAPs) providing dispatcher-assisted telephone-CPR (tCPR), data was collected in an attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of tCPR and its role in patient survival. Three PSAPs, one emergency medical service (EMS) department, and sixteen fire departments from...
A fast response to an emergency call is one of the main objectives of an emergency medical communication center (EMCC). In 2011, a scripted logic-based dispatch protocol system, the Medical Priority Dispatch System™ (MPDS®), was implemented in the five Liguria Region EMCCs in Italy, to manage emergency medical calls. However, response delay time (RD) (i.e., time from when the call rings to when emergency medical dispatcher [EMD] picks it up) and duration of emergency call (DEC) (i.e., time from call pick up to when the call is closed)...
Training that aligns with learners' expectations and preferences can help improve job satisfaction and reduce turnover. Previously published results described the preferences of supervisors and trainers. However, little is known about emergency dispatchers' own preferences and expectations regarding training topics, styles, or delivery methods. The objective of this study was to describe the training methods and topics emergency dispatchers find most effective, what characteristics define successful versus unsuccessful...
Emergency dispatchers serve as a unique population to examine the impact of exposure to trauma given their continuous indirect exposure to stressful and traumatic calls. Furthermore, the unique experiences of emergency dispatchers warrants consideration of preventative measures to mitigate the negative outcomes associated with the job. Due to the continuous stress and exposure to trauma, present perceived control is offered as a variable of interest. Present perceived control (PPC) is examined in two studies by the present...
The time to beat is 17 years. We think we can blow it out of the water. In 2011, a group of researchers from Cambridge University compiled studies on research "lags"—the time it takes to convert research findings into useful patient care applications—and found that the average was 17 years. That's 17 years to go from a discovery in the lab to care for a patient, 17 years from studying a phenomenon to saving a life, 17 years from having an insight about care to implementing it. The broader term for the movement from research findings to practice is "translational science," which can include...
