What do you hate as a dispatcher ?

[eynonqrs]

I am starting a poll on what you hate as a dispatcher ? This is for 911 and private service dispatchers alike.

 

[daedalus]

Why should crews not tell dispatch what to do? Our dispatchers think like this, and like and order from them is an order from the lord of heaven and earth itself. That is why I routinely ignore them on non important issues (like asking for an ETA for the fourth time on a non emergency IFT, or challenging you on the fact that traffic is resent on the freeway, like arguing about it will somehow make it disappear).

 

[rescuepoppy]

Why should crews not tell dispatch what to do? Our dispatchers think like this, and like and order from them is an order from the lord of heaven and earth itself. That is why I routinely ignore them on non important issues (like asking for an ETA for the fourth time on a non emergency IFT, or challenging you on the fact that traffic is resent on the freeway, like arguing about it will somehow make it disappear).

My vote from the dispatcher side is the arm chair quarterbacking. But this is from both sides the dispatcher should realize that the crew in the field can see what they are dealing with. But on the same note the crew has to understand that the dispatcher is the one getting the information from the caller. At least in my case the information I give you is given with the intention of making your job easier and safer. I know that you are looking at traffic flow for instance, but if I tell you to take x street even though traffic may be heavier on it because a tree is across y street that is just to try to help you get there quicker. And it is based on information I am getting.

 

[NolaRabbit]

I only dispatch occasionally these days, but I will say that people coming up late really irritates me...for the reason that I have to keep the offgoing crews on the street until the oncoming units go in service. There are the occasional mitigating circumstances, but this sort of thing is most often caused by a few "usual suspects", and it's quite stressful on me when I'm trying my best to help people go home on time.

I'm also not a big fan of rudeness on the radio. As for the callers, well, that's par for the course where I work.

 

[BruceD]

heh, I used to dispatch (EMT/EMD). There was one crew that you could set your watch by... 32 seconds after you dropped a run on them (we used pagers/MDCs) they would be coming through the door of dispatch telling us (loudly) why it couldn't/shouldn't be their run.

Ultimately, b/c we often took multiple calls at once and runs were dispatched before a call was fully completed, had to put electronic locks on the door, as it was interfering with properly handling calls & dispatch.

We'd let them in to do their complaining, but only after the calls were complete.

I never minded getting information from the field, if MDCs weren't working or if certain streets were tied up/clogged/whatever, the guys on the streets often knew before we did & allowed us to more efficiently dispatch the correct trucks.

But we did have a really good working relationship with the crews, because all of us were EMTs as well as dispatchers.

 

[johnrsemt]

i dispatched for a private service both part time and full time; while I was working on the street as both EMT-B and EMT-P.
I hated crews that would take for ever to finish runs. we had one medic that average 1h 34m at the ED after every ALS run. they average over 45 min after BLS runs. we had other crews that would do 4 runs in the same time. they fixed the issue, they made the medic a supervisor then a manager.

from the street side, hated it when dispatch would try to second guess us: "we dispatched it ALS emergent, what do you mean you are transporting BLS non".
or the transport from hospital floor to rehab center, BLS; that when we were 8 minutes out of hospital my partner took his first set of v/s (he got chewed on for waiting so long); and the patients HR was 206. marked ALS emergent back to ED and the dispatcher told us that we couldn't do that, unless we called them for permission. never did call them

 

[HotelCo]

Did some police dispatching not too long ago for a small area.

Hated when Units would clear scene and not tell us.

 

[Shishkabob]

Did some police dispatching not too long ago for a small area.

Hated when Units would clear scene and not tell us.

Some cops do that to be able to finish paperwork.

 

[HotelCo]

Some cops do that to be able to finish paperwork.

That's fine and dandy, they should still take the 2 seconds to call in and let me know they've cleared the scene. They don't have to mark themselves back in service right away but, it's nice to know that they're safe and clear of the scene.

 

[daedalus]

Some cops do that to be able to finish paperwork.

Some EMS units do not clear while doing paperwork as well. It is generally bad form to take too long on paperwork while out of service, at least around here. I will give that one to the dispatchers, because it is almost always an excuse while the crew visits a hot nurse or runs to taco bell.

 

[eynonqrs]

For the private service that I work for, we have a system status plan, and intergrated into that is a workload screen. Of course on any emergency the closest unit gets sent. But for transports, the unit with the lowest workload gets sent as not to overburden a crew. For out of town trips, on my shift, everyone has an out of town rotation. This works quite well for us. The one thing that frosts my flakes is when our units are busy on emergencys and I am low on rescources, and the hospitals call and wonder why we are not there to take someone out of an ER ? No matter how many times I expain it to them, they don't get it. The pt's in the ER are in a warm, safe enviroment. I understand the ER's get busy and they need the bed, but if they only understood on our side what happens.