AAA Ambulance Provides State-Of-The-Art Dispatch Center
Far from the camera’s range and with remote resemblance to television shows about emergency medical response, AAA Ambulance Service operates a state-of-the-art Dispatch Center designed to assure some 200,000 southeast Mississippians quality pre-hospital care when and where they need.
AAA Ambulance dispatchers monitor the process to assure a response unit moves within 45 seconds to answer each call.
Whenever an individual in the eight-county AAA Ambulance Service coverage area dials 911 on the telephone – line-based or cellular – the call goes to the company’s headquarters on South 28th Avenue in Hattiesburg. Local law enforcement telephones both get and instantly transfer the call to AAA Ambulance’s Dispatch Center.
AAA Ambulance Service relies on Zetron 911 analog and the Nortel digital telephone system, both integrated simultaneously with computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and geographic interface system (GIS), to help ambulance units reach the right destination within the best time. The CAD pinpoints the site of origin on a map, also showing the address and callback information on another screen. The caller’s name appears along with the address, and the names of the fire and law enforcement agencies that service that area also show on the computer screen.
Working closely with BellSouth and local public safety officials, AAA Ambulance created this emergency dispatch system to afford the people of Forrest, Jefferson Davis, Lamar, Marion, Pearl River, Perry, Stone, and Walthall Counties an unprecedented level of reliable radio and telephone communications. The system’s designed to protect life and property in every county’s communities.
Eight full-time communications specialists – each trained and certified with Medical Priority Consultants in Emergency Medical Dispatch – comprise the AAA Ambulance dispatch team; two on-duty individuals staff the Center 24 hours every day.
Wade Spruill, Jr., CEO of the not-for-profit ambulance company which also manages Southeast Mississippi Air Ambulance District (Rescue 7) and the Southeast Trauma Care Region, said their “knowledge and experience enable them to control all of AAA Ambulance Service’s ground, Trans Care van transportation, air medical, and trauma services throughout South Mississippi.”
CAD mapping shows the dispatcher the same GIS information as well as the imported caller information. When the response unit is dispatched, the incident information uses integrated computer telephone/radio interface (CTI) to auto-page to the ambulance crew both location and type of incident to which their unit is responding. The crew gets the same information over the radio for additional clarification or directions.
A complete VHF high-band radio system allows two-way communication from the Dispatch Center to ambulance vehicles or Rescue 7 and from the incident scene to the medical control facility or hospital so the EMT-Paramedics on the crew can talk directly with physicians for orders and medical oversight.
Another aspect of the CAD system enables a “fluid system of deployment to better monitor and respond to the changing needs of our communities,” Spruill said. “We monitor the call volume within zones to post an ambulance within that particular zone at a specific time of day. A scatter map illustrates how we use more technology to analyze the geographic region and visualize the call volume of that area. Such analysis prompts us to place an ambulance within that zone for the next impending call; that’s how we decrease response time.”
Spruill said this System Status Management underscores the importance of every community’s having access to the multi-county coverage AAA Ambulance Service provides.
Beyond patient care aspects, the CAD technology integrates patient-billing, real-time weather satellites, real-time recording and playback devices, and a reporting system that tracks and records all EMS system data. Routinely monitoring the dispatch, out-of-chute, response, on-scene, and back-in-service times of every incident proves the effectiveness for quality assurance and compliance programs.
Employment of the latest technology to save lives and reduce trauma-related personal anguish and health care costs proves the value of visionary city, county, and hospital officials who founded AAA Ambulance Service in 1965, Spruill said. AAA Ambulance Service, he said, “continues to deliver service with pride and care. We appreciate the opportunity to serve communities throughout our service area.”
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About AAA Ambulance Service: AAA Ambulance Service, founded in 1965, created one of the first licensed emergency medical services providers in Mississippi. The community, tax-supported nonprofit organization’s mission is to save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce trauma-related personal anguish and health care costs. For more information, visit http://www.aaaambulance.net.
Contact: Christy M. Joy
PO Box 17889
Hattiesburg, MS 39404
207 South. 28th Ave.
Hattiesburg, MS 39401
(601) 264-0175 SND.Email
