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...
Emergency dispatchers face high levels of stress, yet little research exists on support mechanisms for their well-being. This study focuses on the utilization and perceived efficacy of peer support programs among this critical workforce.
During a given incident, dispatchers are under high stress balancing the workload of listening, understanding, recording, and responding to an unfolding event. These personnel work in a high stakes environment, where seconds can mean life and death. They are called upon to be the voice of reason and calm during traumatic events, and must follow policy and procedures in effectively communicating event information to a number of different user groups. The goal of this work was to demonstrate how a predictive workload equation can be used to evaluate cognitive workload of a dispatcher during a representati
The following case is a medical emergency call handled by a large metropolitan emergency medical service (EMS) agency. This agency handles over 12,000 emergency and non-emergency ambulance calls per month in an area over 270 square miles, with a population of around 500,000.The emergency medical dispatcher (EMD) used the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS®) version 13.3 (NAE) to handle this call.
