Dispatchers may work schedules ranging from 8 to 10 to 12-hour shifts, with additional scheduled or emergency overtime, spanning evenings, weekends, and holidays. The long periods of boredom punctuated by the chaos of multiple crisis calls during staff shortages and the work of dispatchers has been rated as one of the most stressful jobs in America, according to O*Net (2019).
The advanced data export feature in AQUA™ (Priority Dispatch, Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah, USA) is a software tool that enables emergency dispatch centers to extract and analyze data from their quality assurance reviews database. By identifying trends and patterns in this data, advanced data export can assist in identifying potential compliance to protocol issues and aid in finding solutions to address them.
The present study obtained subjective input from emergency telecommunicators regarding their greatest work-related stressors according to five categories: 911 calls, radio traffic, interactions with coworkers, interactions with management, and work-life balance. In addition, this study obtained emergency telecommunicators’ subjective ideas for prevention and intervention strategies that they would like to have implemented in the workplace, at home, and in the community.
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.
Studies suggest cardiac arrest risk associated with abnormal seizure-like activity increases with age, particularly in patients aged 35 or over. To account for this increased risk, there may be a need to add a new MPDS determinant code with a higher priority designation—probably one at the DELTA level.
Chest pain is the 3rd most common response type for EMS systems in the United States, comprising approximately 10% of 911 calls (NEMSIS, 2021)Chest pain is the 3rd most common response type for EMS systems in the United States, comprising approximately 10% of 911 calls (NEMSIS, 2021).
An important objective of Quality Improvement is to identify areas that need further training, so staff performance improves. The goal is for staff to successfully apply the concepts learned to future calls. But what happens when protocol performance still doesn’t meet expectations after multiple coaching sessions and training?
Ambulance times are internationally recognized Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for prehospital care. International benchmarking, by comparing ambulance times between countries is a valuable method to help to identify strengths and weaknesses across healthcare systems. However, terminology and definitions for ambulance times are not standardized across countries. Thus, this quality improvement project aims to compare terminology and definitions of ambulance times from the ambulance services of a range of countries to facilitate international benchmarking.
The important role 911 plays in behavioral health emergencies has drawn increased national attention in recent years, with new ideas emerging on how call centers and emergency responses can be more effective. But there is a relative lack of information about how call centers manage these emergencies, including how calls are assessed, what dispatch options are available, and how data on calls and outcomes is collected and shared.
With the recent implementation of 9-8-8, 9-1-1 telecommunicators across the nation were thrust into one of the most important partnerships they will ever encounter and one that may change the face of crisis response for good. The passage of this act ultimately laid the groundwork for establishing a three-digit number that would be easy to remember and utilized by those suffering from mental health crisis emergencies.
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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