2022 is beginning to shape up as a year of opportunity for us in the public safety and public health professions. As COVID-19 transforms from a pandemic to an endemic disease, emergency services should get a much-needed moment to reset and recharge. Indeed, we can use this well-deserved breather to focus on areas needing improvement in our field. One such area is how we manage responses to 911 medical calls for help. For many years, researchers and analysts have documented the need to reduce lights and siren response to medical calls for emergency assistance, warning of an overreliance on these ‘hot’ re
This issue of AEDR contains two very intriguing studies that, on the surface, seem completely unconnected. Yet many important issues in emergency dispatch are interdependent when one chooses to look a little closer. One study, conducted with the participation of focus groups representing some of Utah’s diverse communities, tells us how members of those communities make their decisions to call 911, why they may not call even when true emergencies present to them, and what factors most influence their decision-making to call or not to call, including a finding that we may not always be delivering the righ
What’s next for the First, First Responder? Since that term was first coined decades ago by Dr. Jeff Clawson in the nascent years of emergency medical dispatch development, much has changed. One of the biggest changes is the expanded role of the emergency telecommunicator in general—not simply the role of the emergency medical dispatcher (EMD), who was the subject of the earliest efforts to professionalize emergency telecommunicators with formal training and continuing education...
The primary objective of this study
was to determine the ability of an
Emergency Communication Nurse (ECN)
to appropriately identify the Abdominal
Pain Chief Complaint Protocol to use to
triage patients in low-acuity cases. The
secondary objectives were to establish
the most frequently used primary triage
code (Medical Priority Dispatch System™
(MPDS®) Determinant Codes), triggering
the use of the Abdominal Pain Chief
Complaint Protocol in the Emergency
Communication Nurse System™ (ECNS™),
as well as the percentage of these
calls resulting in a Recommended Care
Level (RCL) of “emergency a
The overall objective of the study was
to determine whether layperson callers
can effectively stop simulated bleeding
using an improvised or a commercial
tourniquet, when provided with scripted
instructions via phone from a trained
protocol-aided EMD.
Anecdotally, numerous MPDS® (Priority Dispatch Corp., Salt Lake City, Utah, USA)-user agencies in the USA, Canada, UK, and Brazil have reported that the emergency caller has difficulty understanding the key question (KQ) “Is s/he completely alert?”
Situational awareness (SA, also called
situation awareness) is the ability to take in
relevant information about an event in order to
understand it and take effective action.
Maintaining effective SA as an emergency
medical dispatcher (EMD) may be more
difficult than in other, similarly complex roles
because of the remote nature of an
emergency call for help.
Sick Person (Specific Diagnosis) is one of the
most commonly used Chief Complaint Protocols
in the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS).
This protocol is often used when a caller does not
report any specific or high-priority symptoms. Of
particular concern is the 26-ALPHA-1 determinant
code, which refers to a person with “No priority
symptoms” and none of the specific symptoms
listed on the ALPHA-code drop-down list (Fig. 1).
Despite long-standing calls for consistent
training practices, very little is known about
the methods used in emergency dispatcher
training, their relative efficacy, or the topics or
competencies addressed.
Cardiovascular disease remains the most common cause
of death worldwide, with ischemic heart disease (IHD)
causing nearly nine million deaths per year. Coronary heart
disease (CHD) is estimated to cause about one-third of
all deaths in people over 35 years old, and the incidence
of CHD is expected to continue to rise. Acute myocardial
infarctions (AMIs)—heart attacks—represent a significant
portion of this overall CHD mortality, with approximately
620,000 Americans suffering a first heart attack, and
295,000 suffering a repeat event, each year.
