R2012-64 AUTHORIZING EXPENDITURE FOR EMERGENCY MEDICAL DISPATCHING SYSTEM (EMD)

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COUNCIL COMMUNICATION DECATUR FIRE DEPARTMENT 2012-03 March 20, 2012 TO: Honorable Mayor Michael T. McElroy City Council Members Ryan P. McCrady, City Manager FROM: Matthew J. Sekosky, Fire Chief Fred M. Schneller, Battalion Chief RE: Initiation of Emergency Medical Dispatching Service for Decatur/Macon County SUMMARY RECOMMENDATION: Emergency Medical Dispatching is an internationally practiced system of handling emergency calls that yields three main benefits: • Calls are systematically triaged by the dispatcher to determine what level of emergency response is needed, if any. • Built into the system is the ability of a trained Emergency Medical Dispatcher to assist a caller when indicated with simple pre-arrival instructions. • Finally, using EMD brings a higher-level quality assurance to a dispatch center's operations. Initial training is thorough and field-tested, while con-ed requirements are consistent and clearly defined. The critical component in all this is, of course, the system. It is what provides the dispatchers with the system which operates using a very specific flow of questions. The system has been extensively tested, validated and shown to be effective by hundreds of studies. Fire Department Administration and a Committee assigned to research this matter recommend choosing Priority Dispatch as our EMD vendor at a cost of $43,493.00 that includes software, equipment and training. BACKGROUND: The City of Decatur Dispatch Center in the LEC is the emergency dispatching agency for Fire, Medical and Police calls for the City of Decatur and Macon County. In Decatur alone last year over 9,000 calls for service involving the Fire Department were given out, with over 6,000 of them being Medical calls. The County agencies do not run a comparable number of calls individually, but as an aggregate, their calls add up. Currently call-takers on 911 calls collect information from callers in a fairly uniform way, obtaining name, location of emergency, phone number, nature of call and some other items depending on the person taking the call. While this does satisfy a basic requirement for gathering information, Emergency Medical Dispatching provides a higher standard of service for callers and a systematized approach to call-taking for dispatchers.