| 9-1-1 Issues | Project (40) RETAINS
APCO Project (40) RETAINS - Concept Paper
Responsive Efforts To Address
Integral Needs in Staffing
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In Wake Of Shootings, Atlanta Center Understaffe -
Grand Jury Finds Stress, Now Dispatchers Sue for Injuries -
LA Newspaper Probes Dispatcher Burn-Out -
Atlanta Editorial Hits 9-1-1 Staffing Crisis -
Longer Response to Fire, Understaffing Cited -
City Manager (Richmond, VA) Orders Investigation of Staffing -
University Studies Methods for Measuring Workload -
Coral Gables Dispatchers Working at Half Strength (copyright Allen Media and 9-1-1 Dispatch Services Inc.) These are just a few of the headlines that have appeared in the media over the last four years. The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials International (APCO), as the leading public safety dispatch organization in the nation, initially addressed the staffing crisis in the United States' communications centers with the formation of a Communications Center Staffing Crisis Task Force in August 2000. The Staffing Crisis Task Force found personnel recruitment and retention are the keys to the staffing of our nation's 9-1-1/Public Safety Communications Centers. And the key to retention is staffing our centers with the appropriate number of calltakers and dispatchers. We need to address the pervasive problem of job burn-out resulting from calltakers and dispatchers handling too many phone calls and too many field units. While it is acknowledged recruitment and retention are not the only factors, they are probably the most prevalent causes for this crisis. The APCO Communications Center Staffing Crisis Task Force developed "Best Practice" guidelines designed to provide jurisdictions and agencies guidance and assistance in resolving the crisis of recruitment and retention of 9-1-1/Public Safety Communications Center personnel. The task force presented the "Best Practices" to the APCO Executive Council at the Annual Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, resulting in the creation of APCO Project 40 - Communications Center Staffing, now known as Project RETAINS - Responsive Efforts to Address Integral Needs in Staffing. (See Best Practices/Appendix A) In light of the events of September 11th, it is now even more important that we bring this issue to light as the communications centers of our nation are in fact the true "first" of our first responders. If our centers are not prepared with adequate staff for normal day-to-day traffic, how are they going to be able to cope with the added demands of a major terrorist occurrence? We believe we must do everything we can to prepare our centers adequately for the future. APCO has taken the lead in seeking to set a standard that local jurisdictions can use to the benefit of their communications centers. Currently, no national standard exists for staffing our centers, although APCO headquarters responds to questions pertaining to that very subject several times a week. How many calls should a calltaker take in an hour? How many units can a dispatcher realistically manage? What level of service do the communities or the public safety agencies expect? What performance measures are in place? These questions create a complicated, technical puzzle on which life and death depend. Coupled with the issues raised by these questions are the parameters within which communications centers must work. Most centers have to respond to both emergency (9-1-1) and non-emergency (3-1-1 or 5-1-1) calls, and do so in such a way that the handling of the non-emergency calls does not degrade or delay handling the emergency requests. A communications center must have staffing available to handle emergency calls for service and dispatching in preference to non-emergency activities. Communications centers, including facilities, communications systems, and computer systems shall be designed, configured, staffed, and operated to process the emergency call and dispatching workload experienced by the center. Given these parameters, clearly the focus of our nation's 9-1-1 PSAPs is and should be handling emergency calls, yet handling non-emergency traffic is a very real - and staff time-consuming - part of the equation. With that in mind, the goal of APCO is to partner with the Denver Research Institute (DRI) at the University of Denver, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), and the Department of Transportation (DOT) for the research and development of a national standard for staffing the communications centers of America. The APCO Project RETAINS Steering Committee has been meticulously chosen to represent a wide cross-section of those communications centers. The team members' origins range from a West Virginia center with one dispatch position to a center in Arizona with 30 positions; from joint centers providing police/fire/EMS dispatch services to centers providing services to a single agency. Small to large, varied public safety duties, the story is the same - the centers are understaffed. If needed, the sites managed by the members of the Steering Committee may serve as target studies for creation of staffing standards. APCO International also acknowledges the presence of many third-party call centers, e.g. OnStar and Rescu, and is currently surveying the APCO membership regarding inclusion of these centers in APCO. Because of the many similarities in duties and mission of these third-party centers, we can only assume they could (and most probably should) be included in Project RETAINS. APCO foresees the result of this partnership to be a published primer that will give much-needed advice to center-management staff. This advice will include processes for gathering needed data-points for the staffing formula developed by the partnership, taking into account the following items. As you can see, gone are the days of a dispatcher with a single-line phone, notepad and pencil. -
If a center does not have a telephone volume-counting system, how do they proceed? -
Do the centers know what their "busy hour" is and how to derive that information from the data available through various sources? -
How does it tap into the records in its specialized telephone systems, computer-aided dispatch systems, and radio systems to determine how to use the standardized staffing formulas created by the partnership? -
How have those centers that are lucky enough to have state-of-the art telephone systems, computer-aided dispatch systems, radio systems and mobil data computer systems used them to positively impact the communications center tasks? -
How should a center schedule staff based on its busy-hour and other data? -
What standardized performance measures can be applied? -
What impact has the introduction of Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) had on "busy" time? -
What schedule will give the center the coverage needed as well as meet the needs of the employees? -
How has wireless 9-1-1 increased call volume? -
How will the introduction of Phase II wireless positively reduce call handling times? -
How has the introduction of third-party call centers impacted the public safety communication center? -
Are dispatchers spending more time on-line with third-party call centers trying to locate persons in need of assistance than they would with the victims themselves? -
What impact have Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) had on communications centers? -
What impacts will ITS have in the future as more intricately designed systems are put in place? -
What new technologies will be introduced into communications centers to accommodate the basic needs of ITS? - How will these systems impact the day-to-day business of the communications centers?
Staffing and performance-measure studies are currently done independently, many times by consultants using formulas designed for other arenas, such as the Jet Propulsion Lab's Erlang C formula developed in the mid-1970s. While use of this formula may be appropriate, it has never been validated for use in determining staffing levels for communications centers. One of the options open to the partnership would be validation of this formula. Another would be to solicit input from those who have developed similar formulas to develop a standard formula specific to public safety communications. APCO believes a wealth of knowledge is available if the resources of the DRI, BJA and DOT can be tapped to provide the needed research and funding for development of this project. APCO looks forward to a fruitful partnership with the DRI, BJA, and DOT in addressing this very important and viable project to the benefit of all of public safety and the citizens of our great nation. *It should be noted that APCO's recent establishment of a foundation is not expected to have a financial impact on Project RETAINS. Donations to the foundation being sought from Nextel and other sources have been dedicated to the implementation of mobile Enhanced 9-1-1 services nationwide. Future projects to be undertaken by the foundation will be considered as funding becomes available. | 
