Agenda - 10-03-2013 - 1 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Comprehensive Assessment of Emergency Medical Services 118 and 911 /Communications Center Operations Study The average annual Call Answer -to -Call Termination times ranged from a low of 01:38 (98 seconds) in 2011 to a high of 01:44 (104 seconds) during 2010. Keep in mind; however, this is telephone Call Answer -to -Call Termination time with the 911 caller. It is not the Call Answer -to- Dispatch time referenced for which time interval standards have been established. Emergency response agencies are dispatched via radio, not by telephone. Subsequently as is often the case, the Telecom municator may in fact dispatch the response agency while on the phone with the caller before, or sometimes well before, they terminate the conversation with the caller; in which case the call answer -to- dispatch time may be less than the Call Answer -to -Call Termination time; which then might suggest that the Call Answer -to- Dispatch interval objectives suggested were achieved. Figure 47 Call Answer -to -Call Dispatch Call Answer -to- Dispatch Times The sub - section that follows briefly addresses the data issues encountered during the conduct of this study. Despite repeated efforts by Emergency Services personnel, this specific time interval (Call Answer -to- Dispatch) proved the most elusive in terms of the data available and its reliability; i.e. lack of reliability. This table represents the latest effort to retrieve this data Not only are the Year 50% 90% 2009 0:00:55 0:03:00 2010 0:00:56 0:02:54 2011 0:00:53 0:02:42 times excessive, they are 2 -2 1/2 times what the referenced performance standards suggest that they should be. In lay terms, the problem appears to be an issue of how the incoming calls are coded and the current CAD system's capabilities to (or not) sort 911 calls from all calls. Many hours of monitoring Communications Center activity via radio and in the Center itself has demonstrated repeatedly that 911 calls ore being dispatched in far less than the 2 -3 minutes indicated in Figure 47. Considering the County's recent approval to purchase new CAD system software, and its (hopefully) expedient arrival and installation, it was determined that further efforts by staff to assess this issue would be non- productive. The Data The availability of and accessibility to useable data from the Communications Centers CAD system was a concern expressed from the very outset of this study by the County itself. Typically a jurisdiction's 911 Center's Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) data base serves as the foundation of useable emergency call and response data for any and all emergency service agencies, and system managers and is the basis upon which they base performance assessments, resource deployment, staffing, and budget decisions. The data must be easily accessible, up to date, user (especially service agency) friendly, and its accuracy; i.e. reliability; assured. This was not found to be the case in Orange County. Why? For one, the CAD system currently in place was originally purchased and installed in 1992. Many "patches" and "parts" have reportedly been added since that time. The fact remains that the technology used for collecting and analyzing emergency services call and incident response data is twenty (20) years old! While Emergency Services staff labored repeatedly to access, reformat if necessary, interpret and make countless runs of data fields to get to the information required for this study, the efforts should not have had to take the time it did had the system been even modestly up to date. Solutions for Local Government, Inc. 74