Memorandum 10-135 Homeland Security Grant for Dispatch Software

MEMORANDUM 10-135

November 5th, 2010
Walt Wrede, City Manager
Mark Robl, Chief of Police
Homeland Security Grant for Dispatch Software

We have been awarded a grant of $30,000 from the state’s Homeland Security Grant Program for new Emergency Medical Dispatch ProQA software. I request council approval to accept this grant and purchase the new software from Priority Dispatch.

Police department dispatchers currently use a manual card system when performing the emergency medical dispatch function. The dispatcher pages through the manual card system until the proper page is reached that describes the patients symptoms and then issues patient care instructions until EMT’s arrive on scene. The ProQA software computerizes the card system allowing dispatchers to find the appropriate care instructions quickly, move through them as conditions change with a keystroke and it generates a very accurate record of the incident. The record is incorporated into a quality improvement component that will automate our entire emergency medical dispatch case review process. This will help us to pinpoint specific training needs and liability risks. The new software will also aide with many tasks such as data entry, compliance scoring, record keeping and reporting.