Cait Welch, a Quality Assurance Officer and Coordinator at Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, discusses the flexibility of the Police Priority Dispatch System (PPDS). After all, your center’s needs are as unique as the area and people you serve. She talks about Jurisdictionally Approved Questions and Instructions, the Admin Utility, local definitions, how to interrupt professionally, and obvious questions.
Jaci Fox, quality assurance specialist and the Police Lead with QPR, discusses the best way to handle calls about impaired driving, including why it occurs, whether it includes driving while high, and the importance of updating the location in cases of moving violations.
Jason Barbour, Public Safety Specialist at Priority Dispatch Corp., discusses the Police Priority Dispatch System CADE Tool. What is it? Who should use it? And what are the benefits of using it?
Angela Huddle, a member of the IAED’s Police Council of Standards with over 27 years in the 911 industry, discusses some common mistakes she’s seen emergency dispatchers make when handling police calls.
When evaluating the information provided by 911 callers, Emergency Police Dispatchers (EPDs) use scripted protocols to ensure that important details are not missed and that questions are not omitted. Specifically, at the beginning of the call, EPDs ask callers to "Tell me exactly what happened" (TMEWH). Since EPDs must select the correct Chief Complaint (CC) Protocol based on the caller's response, getting a complete response to TMEWH—and interpreting it correctly—is one of the most significant elements of an EPD's job. However, no studies have yet evaluated the use of TMEWH in gathering...
The most critical and difficult part of the Emergency Police Dispatcher's (EPD) job may be the gathering of the initial problem description, which uses a scripted Protocol Case Entry Question (CEQ) but also requires interpretation on the part of the EPD. Specifically, at the beginning of the call, the EPD asks the caller the CEQ "Ok, tell me exactly what happened" (TMEWH). Based on the caller's response, the EPD selects a Chief Complaint (CC) Protocol—a specific protocol that provides the prompts to drill down into the caller's situation—the primary reason for calling 911. Selecting the wrong...
Identification of persons based on verbal descriptions is one of the key skills of police work. Gathering as much description information as possible immediately following the event—for example, at the point of emergency police dispatch—could substantially improve the accuracy of suspect descriptions, the ability to locate missing persons quickly, and other key outcomes of effective police work. The primary objective of this study was to determine what amount and type of persons description information is collected by...
