Emergency communication centers often field calls from police, local law enforcement, sheriff, state police, highway patrol, security, military police, or federal agents. When these officers radio their communication centers for medical assistance, historically, they have said "Send medical" or "Need paramedics." Centers have typically sent lights-and-siren responses, sometimes wasting resources and potentially causing more accidents. It can be frustrating for all parties involved, because officers are not trained to provide necessary patient information, emergency dispatchers must triage...

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Continuous Dispatch Education (CDE) is ongoing training for Emergency Dispatchers, Quality Improvement Specialists and Emergency Telecommunicators (ETC). Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) wanted to improve current compliance performance to the Medical Priority Dispatch System™ (MPDS®) utilizing CDE. This study reports on the effectiveness of CDE efforts and staff motivation in completing CDE. The primary objectives in this study were to establish if structured CDE improved calltaker performance and to gather information about staff perceptions of CDE...

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