The head of most EMS operations is the communication center. The responsibility is huge. It is the first point of contact for the community when reporting medical emergencies.
Communicators coordinate the system’s resources, trying to match the appropriate unit to the appropriate incident. Dispatchers use various forms of technology to help make those decisions: software, GPS, dispatch algorithms, among others.
The system has to be able to send the appropriate resources at the right time to avoid going to a zero-level condition. Sometimes that’s unavoidable, but regulating the system to minimize a zero-level condition can help reduce the possibility.
That’s why it doesn’t make sense that Chicago dispatchers basically throw calls out on the air. Reading the article about a city-issued memo to keep an ambulance shortage quiet made me think of the 1970s’ TV show “Taxi.” Maybe Chicago ambulances are yellow in color?
How does Chicago keep track of their resources? It seems a little strange that a dispatcher doesn’t know where the units are at any given time.
While Chicago is a big system, other similarly sized systems seem to be able to tell which ambulance should go where at any point in time. Is this a sign of a larger issue?
If there are ways to increase the effectiveness of system operations, throwing more ambulances at the problem isn’t necessarily the fix.
