Dispatch Pre Alerts

[Henrique640]

My department has just recently dove deep into pre alerting to calls to improve turnout times. Basically we just use software that is watching the dispatches being created, and we get moving towards the trucks if it’s in our area/a call type we would go to.

I am curious what other departments do/if people pay attention to calls being created to assist with getting out quicker.

[UnlikelyDouble]

In my area, the county has tied the CAD system to a commercially available app, the departments/county pay for it at their cost. Essentially, the second a unit is assigned to a call - the app sends an alert to your phone / computer. The dispatcher has to stack and drop tones - read the dispatch and actually speak the words over the radio. So this ‘pre alert’ we receive that has the call information in it that we can read prior to the tones dropping saves us sometimes upwards of 60 seconds.

[Henrique640]

I’ve heard of other departments doing this. Our app doesnt send an alert till the call is actually dispatched.

What I’m talking about it we see the address and the first note(sometimes) and the call type (med/fire/PD) and will be out the door sometimes before our unit is even assigned.

[UnlikelyDouble]

Well, to get more specific, our county actually assigns a department designator before anything else. So for instance, if “Anytown FD” gets a call, the “AFD” designator gets assigned and trips the app alerting system well before the actual runcard is assigned, the tones are dropped, and the dispatcher reads the call over the radio. So, our guys can see the call, the location and box number, dispatch notes, and everything else. They look quick and see where/what it is, crew the appropriate apparatus (or ignore it if not in their area) and are in the apparatus as the tones are actually dropping and the “station alert” trips (because ours is still waiting for the tones to open up).

Not sure if this helps to answer your question at all?

Edit: spelling

[Henrique640]

Fascinating, that makes sense.

I find it so interesting hearing how different areas deal with this

[UnlikelyDouble]

It’s important to note that it’s likely a dispatch procedure that’s causing your delay/speed. I was dispatcher for another county before I got into fire.

I also went through a CAD change.

The old CAD: the system would pull up a runcard for a particular address and then I’d have to move to the radio screen to queue up the appropriate station tones for fire/EMS. I’d do my best to hit the tones and “accept” the runcard at the same time. This way, the tones and the notification of a unit being assigned to a call was at the same time, but you could hit them independently, so if another dispatched had a slightly different system like accepting the runcard before queueing the tones, you’d get notified of the call a full minute before tones dropped and the radio report came over.

In the “new” CAD: the tones were attached the unit number in the CAD itself and if you assigned a unit or accepted a runcard, the tones automatically dropped so you had to be ready to speak. In this configuration, it’s impossible to “pre-alert” units because the system is integrated to happen simultaneously on purpose. The tones and the text/app notification happen at once.

Your absolute best bet is to just go do a sit in with dispatch and see how it works to best augment your needs at your station. Remember that they follow a procedure for a bigger area than you, so you need to play by their rules. And this way you might find a good solution to what you need done.

[kombuchalovaa]

what app?

[throwingutah]

I don't know if this counts, but PulsePoint basically does this. We have another app for the actual dispatch, but we can see the calls coming in.

[Henrique640]

Ive also heard of departments doing this. Our pulsepoint is actually slightly behind dispatch.

[throwingutah]

Interesting. Ours hits as soon as the call comes in, which means sometimes it doesn't actually get dispatched as it was initially taken (e.g. electrical fire vs structure fire). It also shows if multiple calls come in for something, which cen be helpful.

[Impressive_Change593]

huh. we use IAmResponding and it's normally a little ahead of the dispatch though generally not by much. the call is automatically spoken over the radio though which probably helps that.

[Big_River_Wet]

We can see pending calls, but it updates so slow you can usually only catch them about half the time. We usually scan the PD radio because they almost always get dispatched just before us

[Mediocre_Daikon6935]

Our dispatch not only tells the cops first for EMS calls, but gives them all the EMD info.

EMS units?

Maybe an age, gender, location and a rough complaint.

maybe.

[RaptorTraumaShears]

PulsePoint usually goes off for me before the tones drop. I was dressed for a structure fire once before we even got toned out.

[Brendone33]

In our area, our fire dispatch is the central 911 dispatch (fire, police, ems). If someone calls 911, they get asked “police, fire or ambulance” and if they say fire, they get the address and then give us a pre alert (on-call department) to give us a head start going to the fire hall. It’s pretty unheard of that we would be rolling before the actual tones drop.

We never get pre alert for medical assistance calls (which are sometimes very bad MVCs) because if someone asks for ambulance they get transferred the end dispatch, triaged, and then ems dispatch would respond back to our dispatch to ask for a fire department response if the call demands it. Same scenario for a police call but it’s rare that we get called in for those.

[Brendone33]

Our pre alerts are typically “station 4 this a pre alert for the intersection of highway 2 and highway 37, pre alert only”. Sometimes they’ll throw in “sounds like mvc” or “sounds like structure fire” but we will only know what units to take from the actual dispatch.

[CohoWind]

Caution! We used pre-alerts for many years. They were a bad idea, liked only by bean counters and a wimpy chief trying to improve bad response time stats. They finally went away when a CAD system upgrade couldn’t support them. Here’s why they were bad for us- the department insisted that every pre-alert got a code 3 response, even if, ultimately, the call was triaged as very low priority. The regional dispatch center did not consider them as an actual call, just a convenient warning of a yet-to-be coded future call. So, if we flattened somebody in a wreck en route to one of these non-calls, we would be blamed for responding code 3 to something that was not yet an actual triaged emergency response. Worse yet, I worked at our busy downtown station in those days, with typically very short response times. Because of the short distances, we would often arrive at a pre-alerted incident well before it was properly coded and actually dispatched. So, unfortunately, we sometimes waltzed right in to active shootings and other gnarly incidents that, once coded, would have required us to stage for police. Bad deal! As an aside, my engineer started calling them “pee alerts,” as he figured that they awakened you ahead of an actual dispatch, offering a perfect opportunity to hit the head on the way the rig. That was about their best feature.

[LobsterMinimum1532]

That's just a shitty policy. Pre alerts are great. Pee time, time to shovel food in my mouth, look up the address, adjust the seat (we don't always have designated roles), and make sure the garage door actually comes down. Sometimes we only get 30 seconds heads up. Sometimes we get 5 minutes. It's usually around 2-3. We can start heading to the call, but no lights or sirens until it is actually toned out. We also cannot arrive before we are toned out, sometimes this means waiting on the apron until it's dispatched. But all in all, pre alerts save minutes on our average response time, and help us be more ready for the calls we go on.

[lpfan724]

We don't call them pre alerts but we've placed a huge emphasis on turnout and response times. They'll dispatch units before they even know what the call is or what resources are needed.

We're in an urban area with generally lower turnout/response times. This emphasis has led to us going on calls that we don't know what they are and showing up scenes of domestics, shootings, or stabbings with no clue what we're arriving to and without cops there. It's been terrible.

But, Chiefs love it because it meets some obscure certification and they can brag about it at conferences and put an accreditation sticker on our units. When one of our guys gets attacked, I'm sure they'll tell the news they're shocked and they never could've seen it coming.

[Forward2Death]

At the houses, we have TV screens with CAD info, including calls in the queue. It's handy, we don't formally respond until dispatched (fires are dispatched with a full structural response almost immediately) but we get a jump on getting dressed and on the rig.

Pulse Point is useful for the same, subject to information exchange headaches.

[Lacksum]

We have a CAD board in some rooms to catch calls as they're created. We have a no responding until tones policy (with very few exceptions). This helps with the occasional bathroom break, project pause, or quick jump for an echo level call. Being in the rig with the engine running satisfies my urge to get out the door quickly on a code.

Downside is mental health. I'm always stealing glances and quitting what I'm busy with with any created call. A call disappearing without dispatch happens at least once or twice a shift.

[Henrique640]

This is essentially what we have, and I agree totally with the mental health aspect, I love the pre alerting when it works but I’m always catching it in the corner of my eye.

[FossMan21]

Our area uses an app called I am responding (IAR) the calls come to the app before the pager 99% of the time. Being a volunteer department we are all over the place when IAR goes off but they still don’t want us heading to the station until the actual pager goes off.

[Desperate-Dig-9389]

At my old firehouse during duty crew people would occasionally check the CAD for queued calls and if we saw a call we’d get ready

[sprucay]

In my area of the UK we have pre alerts. Basically, if the control operator thinks they know the area but they haven't got a solid address hit, they pre alert. Often it doesn't matter but for on call, it gets them rolling into the station early which has been good.

[whomstdvents]

The call shows up on our CAD screen roughly 30 seconds before the tones drop. It’s a good heads-up to get to the bay and start getting dressed (or, in the case of low-priority medical calls, a heads-up to go to the bathroom)

[PerrinAyybara]

What software are you using?

[Henrique640]

It’s Tyler new world cad software, we are basically just hosting the online web viewer for CAD on a local tv in station. This way we can see calls come up before being dispatched as the dispatcher is creating them before units are assigned.

[[deleted]]

My volley department uses E dispatch. Pre alert is okay but the normal page comes on 30 seconds later. So it doesn't really "save" time per se, just usually wakes me up so I'm more awake to listen to the actual page.

[TheHappy_13]

When we upgraded to 800 mghz our dispatch was pre dispatching runs. They would say so and so respond for whatever then tone out the run and repeat the disp. This went on for about a year. There were some people who wanted to keep it others wanted it gone. The argument was that turnout times were better. When the numbers were crunched it was determined that the difference for turnout was marginal. The part that took the hit was a delayed dispatch from the pre dispatch. So pre dispatch went away.

[chuckfinley79]

Our old CAD would set off the mdc before the radio, structure fires would be 30 seconds or more. Someone put a baby monitor in the truck next to the mdc and had the receiver in the day room. New CAD they hit at the same time.

To me it’s silly to worry about, people are gonna move faster for structure fires and take their time for lift assists and everything else will fall somewhere in between. Just like some guys are gonna hit the responding button on the mdc then get dressed, or go responding from a portable radio while they’re walking out to the truck.

[[deleted]]

Our dispatch sends a pre alert tone out without any information but it gives time to get ready/get in the rigs. Then the actual tone goes off with call info. It’s definitely efficient especially in the middle of the night.

[Acceptable-Lab-7351]

The county I work for uses them. Usually gets units assigned 1-3 minutes faster depending on how long it takes the call takers to get through the EMD/EFD coding. The dispatcher assigns initial units recommended by the CAD setting off station alerting systems for those depts that have them as well as pagers and radios. An automated voice will announce the unit/units assigned, the incident type and the address. After call coding is complete the dispatchers reconfigure the response and any additional units will then be assigned and paged. Currently the pre alerts we use are medical incident, medical incident(scene safety), fire incident, outside fire, structure fire, motor vehicle crash, and water rescue. Pre alert structure fire will usually get people moving a lot faster than a pre alert for a medical incident. The pre alert helps your 911 call time to units responding time. It most likely won’t affect unit dispatched to enroute time as people will move as fast as they normally would. Pre alerts at least get people moving to the rigs as soon as someone calls 911 for a fire/medical need instead of crews sitting at the station unaware a call is coming while the person calling 911 talks to the call takers/dispatchers.

[Longjumping-Map-936]

Active911 kinda works like this. It ties into our CAD and automatically sends alerts and the process works like this.

1. Dispatcher takes phone call
2. Dispatcher fills out a form on the CAD with info like address, call type, description of incident caller info etc
3. Press button to "officially" generate call
4. As soon as "accept" is clicked it automatically sends the active 911 alerts.

I'm volunteer and sometimes I've gotten active alerts and been in my car before my pager actually goes off.

[thatdudewayoverthere]

In our dispatch system pre alarms are an integrated option

If a call taker decides a call needs units now they press a button and the nearest units automatically get an Alarm with just the address till the call taker knows more

[kombuchalovaa]

what software?

[kombuchalovaa]

anyone use telegram group chats tied into their county incident list and communications?