Dispatch questions.

Hannah.911

Hannah.911

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I searched the other threads for answers but didn't find any. Do any of you have experience with dispatch? I got hired on at a FANTASTIC private service on Friday as dispatch. I initially went out for field EMT-I, but they said that because of my age, they couldn't hire me in that dept. (I turned 20 last Saturday) They said I could dispatch for a year and once I turn 21, be put out on the truck. My question is, do any of you have dispatch experience, and if you do, could you share it? I'll take anything. Tips, advice, stories, warnings. Lay it on me! :P I'm a little nervous because of my lack of experience.
 
How well can you multi-task?
 
BossyCow said:
How well can you multi-task?
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Well enough. I grew up in the cyber age. So I can text, IM, talk on the phone, and surf the web at the same time. But that's about the extent of my experience. lol :rolleyes:
 
Are you dispatching for one agency or for a service that serves multiple agencies? Remember every unit believes they are the only one talking to you and knows that if you don't respond quickly enough its because you are either lazy, out on a smoke break, or just plain messin' with them.
 
BossyCow said:
Are you dispatching for one agency or for a service that serves multiple agencies? Remember every unit believes they are the only one talking to you and knows that if you don't respond quickly enough its because you are either lazy, out on a smoke break, or just plain messin' with them.
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Well, this service has the 911 contract for 4 out of 5 zones in the county, plus runs NET with BLS stretcher trucks and wheelchair vans. So I think it's just one agency, but it's alot. Yeah, I was hanging around the dispatch center today just for giggles, and the woman I was shadowing was on the phone taking a call, one call waiting, and trucks spouting off 10 codes every 15 seconds. I had no real idea what dispatch was really like until today. Props to them!
 
Are you in a rural or urban area? Do you dispatch fire also?

If you dispatch rural fire........I can tell you this, us rural, vlounteer firefighters are always told we sound like mice on meth when we get our rare, good calls like structure fires, good MVAs and CPRs in progerss.:P So if you do dispatche fire, be patient with the firemen and try to rember that fire is to the FD as trauma is to EMS!

If you dispatch a in a city......well, I have NO clue what goes on there!

Good luck!
 
lightsandsirens5 said:
Are you in a rural or urban area? Do you dispatch fire also?

If you dispatch rural fire........I can tell you this, us rural, vlounteer firefighters are always told we sound like mice on meth when we get our rare, good calls like structure fires, good MVAs and CPRs in progerss.:P So if you do dispatche fire, be patient with the firemen and try to rember that fire is to the FD as trauma is to EMS!

If you dispatch a in a city......well, I have NO clue what goes on there!

Good luck!
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That description made me laugh a little bit. Nope, I'm in Atlanta. Urban and suburban.
 
Are you working at a Secondary PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point), or a non-PSAP call center? The job is very different between the two.

Primary PSAP's answer 911 calls, Secondary PSAP's get calls transferred to them from Primary PSAP's. Typically primaries are your state police and sheriff's departments call centers, maybe an Atlanta 911 center?

If you work at a non-PSAP call center, and your service does run emergency, the PSAP dispatcher will call you and pass on the message; but you will never talk to the 911 caller directly.
 
redcrossemt said:
Are you working at a Secondary PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point), or a non-PSAP call center? The job is very different between the two.

Primary PSAP's answer 911 calls, Secondary PSAP's get calls transferred to them from Primary PSAP's. Typically primaries are your state police and sheriff's departments call centers, maybe an Atlanta 911 center?

If you work at a non-PSAP call center, and your service does run emergency, the PSAP dispatcher will call you and pass on the message; but you will never talk to the 911 caller directly.
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You hit the nail on the head. I trained my first day today, and that's what it is. non-PSAP call center. Occasionally, we have staff from nursing facilities call us directly instead of 911 for an emergency run, (I don't understand why though) and we'll work with that.

Now that I actually know what type of job I'm working, do you have any tips to help me out? :P
 
Follow the rules, protocols, policies, and procedures they have in place.

I'm not sure if your company has a supervisor on-shift at all times; but be sure you can get help from a supervisor (either in person in your call center, in a truck via phone/radio, or at home via phone/pager).

As a dispatcher, you will be asked the silliest, weirdest things, and be thrown in to each and every bad situation that happens on the road. Your trucks will in accidents, break down, and EMTs will need to go home in the middle of the day. Employees will fight, nursing homes will complain, and patients who were transported on that long distance run will call to say that the crew has their purse in the truck.

You don't have to know how to do everything; you just need to use some common sense and to call someone else when you don't know.

Be patient with your crews. Once you work the road, you'll understand the other side of it. I was never nice to dispatch, until I dispatched. We are typically impatient and not so understanding. We get annoyed when you don't answer the phone on the first ring. We get annoyed when you call us to ask us to come in early, or stay late.

Remember that every phone line and every radio is probably recorded. Be nice to everyone. If you don't treat your customers (every caller) right, you won't be in dispatch for long. You are serving private callers, nursing homes, and your employees. If they aren't happy with you, they will make sure your boss knows it.

Do you guys use paper cards or CAD (computer aided dispatch)? Do you have MDTs (mobile data terminals) in your trucks?

Don't hesitate to ask anything if you need some advice or help...
 
I have NO experience in the dispatching area, but good luck I hear its a tough job, and just remember there are people out there that dispise dispatchers for whatever reason...However, just do your best. . . and remember, There are some people that you just can't please.
 
Are you an EMD?
Have any dispatch training?

Or just a warm body with a kinda sorta related education?
 
Hannah.911 said:
Occasionally, we have staff from nursing facilities call us directly instead of 911 for an emergency run, (I don't understand why though) and we'll work with that.
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A lot of private ambulance companies have contracts with local nursing homes for them to provide 911 services instead of the local 911 agency.
 
I worked in a Primary PSAP in a urban area for around two years. Dispatched Fire/EMS and transferred LE calls.
Be ready to answer the craziest/unbelievable questions ever, people will call about anything and everything. It was a great job, I just couldn't handle being inside a dark room all day.
Good luck with it, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

;)
 
I am a fire/EMS/law enforcement dispatcher for a county-wide PSAP that is dispatch for nearly 30 agencies. Have done that for about 3 years now. Have not had any experience with non-PSAP dispatch, but I think that there are some things that probably will be the same...

Dispatching for multiple agencies means multiple headaches...all at once.

Be patient (easier said than done), and always approach dispatch in the same way that you would approach field work. Field experience is great because when you are ready to reach through the mic and choke the field unit you can think about how many times you have wanted to reach through the mic on the truck and choke your dispatcher!

Know your response area. Field units get lost...a lot. You are more helpful if you know where they are going. Second best is being able to read maps VERY well. If you can't, practice!

Multi-tasking...most people think that they multi-task well. I did, until I sat down in the dispatch chair during a summer storm and had to answer well over 100 9-1-1 calls in an hour (just fire/EMS) and dispatch them all myself for the first time. That wasn't bad until all of the field units start talking over top of each other and rambling on with unnecessary chit-chat that shouldn't be going on in a situation like that. That is a situation that you, the dispatcher, have to take control of...prioritize requests and deal with life-threatening issues first and get to the rest later. If you will be dealing with this sort of thing and have the capability, assign tactical channels to large incidents to keep priority frequencies clear for emergency traffic.

Common sense is you friend...I have learned that when you dispatch and all is calm that common sense is easy to have...but when you get on an ambulance/fire truck/police car and all is chaos, sometimes common sense becomes occasional sense. They WILL ask you a million questions...even if you have already told them the answers 30 times. I have been guilty of it myself...the other day I swear I must have asked for an address 4 or 5 times...and that was after they said it twice during the initial dispatch and again upon my response. It happens. When the dispatch center breaks out into chaos and YOU are a victim of "occasional sense," get a hold of yourself, prioritize, and avoid that "mice on meth" syndrome that has already been mentioned. The field units depend on YOU to keep them safe and you can't do it if you are going off the deep end.

If you are using CAD, don't be what the field units here call a "CAD Dummy." You need to learn your job so well that you could do it without looking at the CAD. Computers crash and sometimes have glitches.

And PACK YOUR LUNCH! Don't eat out every night you work like most dispatchers do or pretty soon you will get what we here call the "big chair disease." We have these big comfortable chairs...eat out every shift and pretty soon you will fill up the ENTIRE big chair. Seriously...I have gained over 20 pounds in the last 3 years from the constant sitting on my butt and eating junk. That is actually one of the biggest reasons I am happy to be in the field and only dispatching part time now.

~FireCPT11 :~)
 
Brace yourself

B-Calm
B-Thorough
B-100% Positive

It would depend on how much EMS experience you have in the field, that would help you. I know at our dispatch, our station has 2 - 24/hr medic squads and we do not have any type of ems backup, like fire dept. ems. So, when the crap hits the fan, you have to know everything about that county and it's resources. At the same time, that dispatcher, along with 2 other dispatchers, are dispatching 8 other stations with different amounts of squads, and also take care of a message service for physicians, tow trucks and the like.
So, go slow, don't talk fast, get as much information on the phone as you can about the call, like if it come in as an unresponsive male, well, are they breathing or not, if they don't know, what color are they?? Use your medical knowledge a little to help the people on the squads to prepare for the call. I don't know how your dispatch works, but, I know what dispatchers I can trust and they trust me, so If I am in a crappy radio area with no cell phone or truck phone range, which is common, I change the tone of my traffic and even if they can't understand a word of it, they know we are in trouble and send help. You need to do what works for you and your company. Just remember, you take the call, you are responsible for any and all information gathered, like don't mess up directions (N, S, E, W) and always read back the address to the caller to make sure it is correct, it will save your butt.
 
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BLSBoy said:
Are you an EMD?
Have any dispatch training?

Or just a warm body with a kinda sorta related education?
Click to expand...

I'm just a warm body I guess. (Hot body's more like it, baby! :P) I'm a brand new EMT-I, they're willing to put me through EMD training.

LINUSS said:
A lot of private ambulance companies have contracts with local nursing homes for them to provide 911 services instead of the local 911 agency.
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Thanks. Obviously I'm clueless. I appreciate any information, it's helpful.

FireCPT11 said:
Know your response area. Field units get lost...a lot. You are more helpful if you know where they are going. Second best is being able to read maps VERY well. If you can't, practice!
Click to expand...

I think that's the most major reason I'm struggling right now. I'm a transplant from a 'burb of Boston. I'm in Atlanta now with a zillion different hospitals, specialty offices, hospices, and nursing homes. It's like an overload of places I don't know in places I've never heard of. But I'm learning quick.


Thanks for all the info and advice guys. I appreciate it all.
 
Hannah.911 said:
I'm just a warm body I guess. (Hot body's more like it, baby! :P) I'm a brand new EMT-I, they're willing to put me through EMD training.
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I would just be wary. Until you have your EMD, I would be hesitant about working the 911 side of things.
Should the fecal matter hit the overhead oscillating device, who do you think they are gonna blame?

Now, about that hott body.........;)
 
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