STANDARDS OF CARE FOR DISPATCHERS
Many fire service administrators have been asking me what’s all the fuss about “standards of care” when it comes to dispatchers? After all, dispatchers don’t actually deliver any care, the thinking goes, so why worry about them and “standards of care” in die same breath?
There are several one-word answers to that question. The one that often provides the most motivational force (even if it is an essentially negative force) is “liability.” “I want to avoid trouble; therefore, I don’t want to do something that leaves me vulnerable” is the way the thinking goes. And this is definitely a concern when your department is casual about standards of care for dispatchers.
Another word that comes to mind is “others,” as in, What services do other departments provide? Your initial response to this might be, “What they do is up to them; I’m taking care of my department.” Nonetheless, “taking care” of your department may require you to be very much aware of what others do.
The word I believe provides the most positive motivating force, however, is “pride.” This entails focusing not so much on what you don’t want to do but on what you do want to do—provide the best service possible for the people you serve.
INCLUDE THE DISPATCHER
You may look at your firefighter and EMT training, your equipment, and your vehicles and believe that you’ve spent your money wisely and have a crackerjack team to send to the public whenever and wherever it needs it. (In fact, if that’s not your response after assessing your department, you obviously have a lot of work to do!) But, if all you are looking at are your firefighters, EMTs, and equipment and vehicles, you don’t have enough data to make a proper assessment of your service delivery. The person you are forgetting is your dispatcher.
The fire and emergency process ranges from discovery to reporting to dispatching to responding to operating on the scene. The delivery of service starts not when your field forces arrive but when your communications people are made aware of the incident. It sometimes is easier to realize this in cases where a citizen complains that a call receiver (sometimes known as a “telecommunicator” as well as a dispatcher) was rude. If you are a fire service manager and receive such a complaint, do you dismiss it because the rudeness is alleged to have taken place before the field forces arrived on the scene? Of course not! Then use the same perspective on all calls. When your dispatcher answers that ringing phone, you already have responded to the alarm.
THE PUBLIC EXPECTS MORE
Now, let’s go back and look at some of the one-word answers 1 talked about earlier. Why should you worry about “liability” if you limit your dispatchers simply to obtaining the address, phone number, and nature of the problem? If they don’t go any further than that and they get that right, there’s no problem, right? Wrong! Standards of care for dispatching have been steadily evolving for years, with a big jump having taken place within the past two years. ITie major influence in effecting the recent changes has to do with one of the other words 1 mentioned: “others.” What others do, whether you like it or not, has a big influence on what you are expected to do. If your department does not do it—for example, give prearrival instructions to callers seeking medical assistance—you are asking for litigation. Why? Because everybody knows that some departments (maybe even quite a few with budgets smaller than yours) give such instructions. How does everybody know this? Because they watch television!
If millions of people watch any one of a number of network and syndicated “real-life emergency” shows each week and they see dispatchers giving instructions to folks calling in with choking babies, drowning victims, unconscious people, and lots of other familiar-sounding incidents, then it’s reasonable to assume that some citizens in your jurisdiction are operating under the assumption that they can expect the same level of service when they call your department. After all, they have no reason not to expect this service. They now know that the state of the art is such that prearrival instructions are fairly standard. It would make for pretty boring television if dispatchers were shown simply writing or typing addresses and then sitting around waiting for a progress report so they could find out what happened.
Before you go cursing those television folks, think of the big picture. What all these shows have done for the fire service is make the strongest possible argument for training dispatchers to perform at the highest possible standards of care. By doing so, they have raised those standards because they have raised the public’s expectations. And in a way, they have made your job easier. Where once you may have had to fight tooth and nail with your city council to allocate training funds, it now is plain for everyone to see that such expenditures are cost-effective.
You also may find yourself wondering if additional training and duties for dispatchers are going to lead to their asking for more money. Of course they are! Phil Salafia, president of Powerphone. a Madison, Connecticut, dispatcher training firm, notes that the average professional life of an emergency dispatcher in this country is 3.2 years. “The turnover is such that we find ourselves going back to the same cities every few years because a lot of the certified dispatchers have left,” says Salafia.
When it comes to delivery of emergency service, if you don’t skimp on vehicles, equipment, and training of field forces, then don’t skimp on your dispatchers either. One way or the other, you don’t get what you don’t pay for. If you don’t pay for training, you don’t get the protection that comes from knowledge of the latest techniques and standards. Furthermore, by failing to equip and pay your people appropriately, you contribute to the turnover problem Salafia is talking about. Any calculation of cost in this area, therefore, would have to quantify the expenses of the turnover rate, including recruitment and orientation. Another, perhaps less easily measured, cost is that of failing to have experienced personnel on your roster. Without senior people, you lose that steadying influence that comes with mentoring and apprentice relationships—a positive factor that cannot be fabricated.
Again, you have a paradoxical presentation that must be interpreted correctly as it is happening if you are to provide appropriate direction for your department. Just as the initial response that providing prearrival instructions will open your department to liability is incorrect (in fact, exactly the opposite is true), so is the first impression that additional training and duties for dispatchers will be more costly. Additional training and payroll costs that might be incurred must be measured against the cost of not doing it. In any case, by making sure you measure up to the state of the art in emergency communications and dispatchers’ standards of care, you’ll still be happy with the outcome. You will know that you are providing not only the best service possible but also the most defensible service possible—not a bad place to be!
