SHOULD WE ASK CALLERS "IS ANYONE PINNED (TRAPPED)?" DURING MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS (MVAs)? We should! The question directs callers to pay attention to what matters most. For a traffic collision, the higher the speed of the vehicle, the higher the chances an occupant suffers severe injuries. After a serious crash, the absorbed kinetic energy can cause the vehicle to deform significantly, displacing parts of the vehicle into the interior. This displacement frequently limits an occupant's ability to move or be removed. When there is need for extrication, deformity and damage hinder an occupant's...
Kerri Hatt, editor–in–chief of EMS1 magazine, and Anthony Minge, senior partner with Fitch & Associates, discuss the 2020 EMS Trend Report, which continues a five-year effort to identify how EMS providers, managers, and leaders perceive the challenges impacting the sustainability and future of the industry...
Reverend France A. Davis, civil rights activist and advisory member of the IAED's new Diversity and Inclusion Board, discusses his background as an activist, the steps we need to take to achieve equality in America, and how emergency dispatch specifically can help effect change...
Dr. Chris Olola, Director of Research for the IAED, Greg Scott, Associate Director of Protocol Evolution, and Matt Hirschi, Data Analyst, discuss the IAED's data center: what it is, how it came to be, and how it can benefit your agency...
Chandy Ghosh and Monica Million, co-founders of NENA's WIN initiative, discuss the need for spaces dedicated to women in 911 as well as WIN's objectives...
Kari Dickerson, firefighter, paramedic, and Director of Diversity and Membership for the National EMS Museum, discusses Freedom House Ambulance Service, one of the first ever EMS programs, and its influence on modern emergency medicine...
Sara Weston, senior project consultant for 911 Authority, discusses 911der Women, a group she created for women in careers touching 911 to connect with and support one another...
Sarah Smith, Public Information Officer for Pennington County Emergency Services Communication Center, discusses her center's 911 Citizens' Academy—what it is, who it's for, and how to institute one in your own center...
Liz Belmonte, training supervisor at Cambridge Emergency Communications, discusses implicit bias, including how it can affect every step of an emergency police call, from the caller to the dispatcher to the responding police officer...
During a pandemic, dispatch agencies need a robust triage tool when emergency services become stressed from high call loads, workforce degradation, and hospital saturation. This tool needs to be scalable at the local level so that it can escalated and de-escalated at the discretion of local EMS authorities. The purpose of Protocol 36 is to allow Emergency Medical Dispatchers to identify—at the point of call intake—those patients that are most likely COVID-19 symptomatic, and then triage them within a single dispatch protocol that allows the most efficient and effective use of pandemic-related...
