a question for consolidated multi-discipline agencies

[Guest guest]

I am looking for examples of your " setup " with regards to seperate

police & fire dispatchers. How does your CAD system handle a

multi-discipline call? (ie one that requires both a Police & Fire

response) For those of you in a call-taker setup, does the call " split "

and go to both dispatchers? can only one manipulate it at time? I have

a vendor telling me that very few CAD systems can simultaneously handle

a call that requires both a police & fire response in the same agency at

the same time, I am being told that most need to default to one or the

other...Police or Fire. Could this be an underlying reason why police &

fire centers are seperate in larger cities?

Thanks

East Central Dispatch Center

St. Louis MO

[Guest guest]

In Portland Oregon, our CAD creates two separate calls, one for the

police dispatcher, the other for the fire/EMS dispatcher. Once upon a time,

that single fire/EMS call was two calls: one for the fire dispatcher, one

for

the EMS dispatcher, so years ago, we would have three different CAD

incidents,

all for the same traffic accident, for example. Then came the request to

combine

fire and EMS into a single incident (and do unit suggestion for both classes

of service!),

and CAD was reprogrammed to do so. This change eliminated the need for a

separate EMS dispatcher.

CAD is programmed to create one or two calls based on the typecode.

A traffic accident with injuries, is coded as a TA1, which creates an ACCINJ

call

for police, and a TA1 for fire/EMS.

Adding supplemental information to either call would supplement the other

'linked'

call, after asking the calltaker/dispatcher if, indeed, they wanted to add

the info to both calls.

On rare occasions, the need exists to supplement only one of the calls that

are linked,

such as adding warrant info to the police side of the incident.

We have a PRC (now Northrop Grumman) COBOL CAD system.

As a former employee of PRC, I don't understand that vendor comment about

few CADs being able to handle a police and fire response simultaneously,

unless they're talking about having CAD create a *single* call for

police/fire,

to be handled by one dispatcher, the way we did for fire/EMS. Yes, that is

unusual

in my experience.

Don't know if Portland falls into the 'larger city' category, but we are a

combined

center doing police/fire/EMS for all of Multnomah County, to the tune of

about

750,000 CAD incidents a year.

Howie Weiner

CAD Software Manager

Bureau of Emergency Communications

P.O. Box 1927

Portland, OR 97207-1927

howiew@...

>I am looking for examples of your " setup " with regards to seperate

>police & fire dispatchers. How does your CAD system handle a

>multi-discipline call? (ie one that requires both a Police & Fire

>response) For those of you in a call-taker setup, does the call " split "

>and go to both dispatchers? can only one manipulate it at time? I have

>a vendor telling me that very few CAD systems can simultaneously handle

>a call that requires both a police & fire response in the same agency at

>the same time, I am being told that most need to default to one or the

>other...Police or Fire. Could this be an underlying reason why police &

>fire centers are seperate in larger cities?