Profession emergency medical dispatcher

Emergency medical dispatchers respond to urgent calls made to the control center, take information about the emergency situation, the address and other details and dispatch the nearest ambulance or paramedic helicopter.

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Personality Type

• Conventional / Enterprising
• Conventional / Social

Knowledge

• Medical dispatch

  The concepts of a medical dispatch system and its use which consists in performing criteria based medical dispatch, answering emergency calls, and operating computer aided dispatch systems.

• Local geography

  The range of physical and geographical properties and descriptions of a local area, by street names and not only.

Skills

• Work in multidisciplinary teams related to emergency care

  Work with a variety of people from various health care and non-health care services such as ambulance control room staff, paramedics, doctors and nurses, as well as people working in the fire and police department.

• Tolerate stress

  Maintain a temperate mental state and effective performance under pressure or adverse circumstances.

• Communicate verbal instructions

  Communicate transparent instructions. Ensure that messages are understood and followed correctly.

• Support distressed emergency callers

  Provide emotional support and guidance to emergency callers, helping them to cope with the distressing situation.

• Prioritise emergencies

  Determine the level of risk of an emergency situation and balance the dispatch of ambulances to emergency situations accordingly.

• Comply with legislation related to health care

  Comply with the regional and national legislation that is relevant to one`s work and apply it in practice.

• Operate an emergency communication system

  Efficiently operate common communication systems used in emergencies, such as base station mobile transmitters and receivers, portable transmitters and receivers, repeaters, cellular phones, pagers, automated vehicle locators, and satellite phones as required.

• Comply with quality standards related to healthcare practice

  Apply quality standards related to risk management, safety procedures, patients feedback, screening and medical devices in daily practice, as they are recognized by the national professional associations and authorities.

• Listen actively

  Give attention to what other people say, patiently understand points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times; able to listen carefully the needs of customers, clients, passengers, service users or others, and provide solutions accordingly.

• Personnel planning in emergency response

  Planning of personnel to be dispatched to emergency locations in either medical, fire or police operations.

• Adhere to organisational guidelines

  Adhere to organisational or department specific standards and guidelines. Understand the motives of the organisation and the common agreements and act accordingly.

• Dispatch ambulance

  Send the appropriate emergency response vehicle to the indicated location in order to offer support to individuals who find themselves in life-threatening situations.

• Answer emergency calls

  Take calls from individuals who find themselves in life threating situations and who require assistance.

• Log emergency call information electronically

  Register the information received from emergency callers into a computer for further processing or record keeping purposes.

• Manage dispatch software systems

  Manage dispatch software systems to execute tasks such as work order generation, route planning, and other activities.

• Provide advice to emergency callers

  Provide technical or practical advice to emergency callers prior to the arrival of the ambulance.

Optional knowledge and skills

Source: Sisyphus ODB