The Dallas Fire-Rescue (DFR) Department is excited to announce the
implementation of the Medical Priority Dispatch System, better known as
Priority Dispatch, to better serve the citizens of Dallas in emergency medical
situations. The new system, which was approved by City Council earlier this
year, follows nationally recognized standards that provide identification of
life-threatening situations, determination of critical emergency call
information for responders, and call prioritization to send the right resource
to the highest medical need request, thus affording consistent care and service
to every emergency medical request received. The system, which is
scheduled to be implemented toward the middle of November, has another
significant benefit: a proactive quality improvement program that will serve as
an important component towards DFR’s continued assessment, adjustment, and
improvements in EMS delivery.
"The system will allow DFR to send the most appropriate EMS
resource to handle high-priority calls, while still managing the overall
ambulance resource needs throughout the City; ensuring effective response times
to the highest priority calls", said DFR Assistant Chief of the EMS
and Communications Bureau, Daniel Salazar, when asked how the new system will
best benefit callers. "It has been proven effective in other
jurisdictions, and we look forward to its implementation," he added.
The department plans to evaluate how the system responds and works with the
current DFR response model over the next three to four months. David Coatney,
Chief of the Dallas Fire-Rescue Department, said that “assuming the system
works as anticipated, there will be changes made in the way EMS service
delivery is provided across the City, primarily in call prioritization and what
type of resource (EMS unit, Fire unit, or further processing) each call
receives”. As the system is implemented, it is important that the
citizens of Dallas understand that the new system will not impact how quickly a
response is sent to high priority EMS calls; but instead, other types of calls
(non-urgent) will require more vetting to determine which type of EMS resource
should be dispatched. Dallas Fire-Rescue will continue to put Service
First as the system is implemented and fully expects that it will help in
the daily management of an ever increasing call volume.