By Gina Childress
The Wilson Daily Times
WILSON COUNTY, N.C. — Staff with Wilson County EMS and 911 Emergency Services are reviewing approximately six weeks worth of calls after an upgrade to the 911 dispatch system caused some confusion.
Chris Parker, clinical affairs officer with Wilson County EMS, said the 911 emergency call center was required to upgrade its software by the National Academy of Emergency Medical Dispatch and only had a few days in which to do it.
As a result, the fire department was no longer dispatched as first responders to every auto accident and sick call. Wilson Fire/ Rescue Services personnel found out about the change by accident.
The 911 staff has been reviewing the calls since the change took place to make sure no emergency requests had “fallen through the cracks,” Parker said.
“The program updated the response determinants to emergency calls,” he said. “This was a nationwide upgrade. We have since met with the fire department, and we have been able to customize the system, and they are now responding to all of the calls they were before,” he said.
Parker indicated the agency had a very small window of time to make the system upgrade. He said there wasn’t time to notify the fire departments of the changes before they took place.
The software upgrade was based on a national standard of which emergency services were dispatched to various calls based on a predetermined set of questions asked by the 911 operators and the responses given by the caller.
“The national determinates err on the side of not utilizing services that are not needed,” Parker said. “If one agency is determined to not be needed based on the responses to the questions the 911 operator asks, then it leaves that agency available to go on another call if need be.”
Some of the changes added more emergency personnel to calls while reducing the response to others, Parker said.
The changes went into effect Aug. 1.
However, it was late September before the city’s fire department realized they were not responding to calls as they had previously. Don Oliver, chief of Wilson Fire/Rescue Services, said they realized they weren’t being dispatched to calls when sometime around the end of September, an on-duty battalion commander was leaving Center Station (headquarters) and came upon an accident on Hines Street.
“He called in and realized we had not been dispatched to it,” Oliver said. “That’s when we realized that we weren’t being called out on accidents with unknown injuries.”
Oliver said Tracy Mosley, a battalion commander, met with staff at 911 and reviewed the new dispatch criteria and discussed why the fire departments needed to be dispatched even though the national standard did not call for it.
“What concerned us the most was the unknown injury accidents,” Oliver said. “It is our responsibility to contain any hazardous spills — like gas, oil or antifreeze. The longer the delay for us to respond, the more chance there is of something like that getting into the water system.”
Even if the fire department is not needed, it is better to be dispatched on the front end, rather than on the back end saving valuable seconds, Oliver explained. “That’s why our stations are strategically located around the city.”
Lin Jones, president of the Wilson County Fire Protection Service Inc., which includes volunteer fire chiefs and several members of Wilson Fire/Rescue Services, agreed with Oliver saying it wastes valuable time if the fire department isn’t dispatched, and then it is determined once EMS arrives they are needed. Jones is also chief of the Toisnot Volunteer Fire Department.
“If we are dispatched initially it takes us under five minutes to get there from the volunteer side of things,” Jones said. “But if we aren’t dispatched immediately and EMS or law enforcement arrive on the scene and determines we are needed, it could be 20 to 25 minutes after the incident before we are dispatched. That wastes valuable time.”
Oliver says there are good reasons that so many personnel respond to calls, even when it turns out they are not needed.
“Our first responsibility is to the public and their safety,” he said. “We would rather be there and not be needed, than to not be there and be needed.”
Copyright 2009