Welcome to the fourth issue of the Annals of Emergency Dispatch & Response. We have reached our second birthday going strong: this issue contains the most overall papers, the broadest scope of topics, the most diverse group of authors, and the most peer-reviewed research of any issue so far. Perhaps even more importantly, putting out our fourth issue makes us eligible for listing in online research data- bases. We’ll be more visible, more accessible, and more citable than ever.
This issue also marks a turning point for me personally in relationship to AEDR. I am humbled to take over as Editor-in-Chief from our founding Editor (and now Editor Emeritus), Chris Olola. Chris took AEDR from birth through its infancy, and now I will have the honor of seeing it, hopefully, through its adolescence.
As we make these changes, we foresee big things in our future, including special issues on topics of interest to researchers and dispatch professionals, as well as more collaborative work between dispatchers and researchers.
This issue sets the stage for many of these future research projects by providing a number of foundational papers in disciplines that have seen very little research previously. For both the Emergency Communication Nurse System and the Fire Priority Dispatch Protocol, frequency distribution papers are presented that provide an overview of the types and distributions of calls handled. Building on research published in a previous issue, we also present a paper on the Police Priority Dispatch System that introduces call prioritization time, a new metric for agencies interested in parsing their calltaking times into more meaningful units.
In addition to original research, you will also find in this issue a number of case studies, including an ECNS case about an unusual animal encounter, a case from the U.K. about a rare medical condition, and a case from the U.S. concerning the role of second-party callers in obtaining information from patients on scene.
Finally, this issue is bookended by two papers that take a broader view of dispatching and emergency response. At the back of the issue, the EMD Resource Paper—companion to the NAEMSP EMD Position Paper—outlines the extensive research and knowledge base behind the Position Paper’s recommendations. Up front, “Information Convergence at Major Emergency Incidents in Kenya” offers a broad perspective on a potential scene-safety phenomenon at major incident sites and ways to manage it.
In addition to being a place to share and promote dispatch research, we hope AEDR can provide learning opportunities for dispatchers and calltakers. To further this goal, we have included, in the attached Journal of Emergency Dispatch, a Continuing Dispatch Education quiz related to the articles in this issue of AEDR. To receive credit for your hour of CDE, please either complete the quiz on paper in the Journal or take it online at our website, aedrjournal.org.
With your help, AEDR is fast becoming the future of emergency dispatch research. Thank you for reading, and as always, contact us with your ideas, questions, and case studies at aedrjournal@emergencydispatch.org.
Isabel Gardett, PhD
Editor-in-chief