Q&A
911 call triage and ambulance dispatch criteria
0:37:50
·
87 sec
Chief Michael Fields explains the current 911 call triage process and ambulance dispatch criteria for medical emergencies.
- Generally, all 911 calls for medical emergencies result in an ambulance dispatch
- Calls are prioritized into life-threatening (Priority 1-3) and non-life-threatening (Priority 7-8) emergencies
- Life-threatening emergencies receive responses with lights and sirens
- Non-life-threatening emergencies receive responses without lights and sirens
- The department is working on using telemedicine to identify low-acuity calls that might be better served by speaking with a doctor or visiting an urgent care center
Joann Ariola
0:37:50
Okay.
0:37:51
And as long as we're on the topic of dispatch, and what circumstances would 911 for a medical emergency not result in an ambulance dispatch, how often does it occur, and who makes the decision whether to dispatch an ambulance or not.
Michael Fields
0:38:07
Based on the current status that we have, if you call 911, we're gonna dispatch enablers.
0:38:13
So you we prioritize those assignments, probably 1, 2, and threes, or our life threatening emergencies, those are your cardiac arrest, your unconscious, your choke, some cardiacs, and you dip breathers for the most part.
0:38:25
And then we have what we call nonlife threatening emergencies.
0:38:29
Those are domino panes sick calls.
0:38:31
They're still gonna get a response, but the first one, you know, we respond to 1 to 6 with lights and sirens.
0:38:38
Priority 7s and 8s don't require your license irons to go to those emergencies.
0:38:43
So everything is about 3 Arjun.
0:38:45
We wanna make sure that if you call 911 that we're gonna get an ambulance to you, but we take priority on the priority assignment.
0:38:52
So If you call, we're gonna send somebody.
0:38:55
What we have been trying to do with this system is utilize telemedicine to identify the low acuity call types, the ones that we feel that you can speak to a doctor right away, and maybe that doctor can be able to assess you via on on the phone and then possibly send you to urgent care center or provide some other type of care before you go on to the emergency room.
