All Acadian's operators now EMD certified for PERS accounts

LAFAYETTE, La. and SALT LAKE CITY—Acadian Monitoring Services has announced it is now Emergency Medical Dispatch certified, allowing its operators to provide immediate and continual medical advice and assistance to its PERS callers while they wait for first responders to arrive. The certification, according to Acadian, means its operators now have the tools to more effectively help save lives.

“Being an EMT is great, but to have the expertise directly at your fingertips so you can instruct the person needing help is what makes us stand apart,” said Acadian director of operations Kenny Savoie. “Each emergency is scripted with an appropriate response where our dispatchers can establish the critical ABCs—airway, breathing, circulation—how to stop hemorrhaging on a wound—critical things that can be done by a family member or citizen that could definitely affect the outcome of a patient during pre-arrival of first responders … it standardizes the self-help process.”

In order to receive the certification, all Acadian's operators had to complete dispatch protocol system provider Medical Priority's EMD Certification Course, which aims to improve the quality of service and care to the caller by training dispatchers to correctly identify chief complaints, assign needed resources, improve scene safety, provide crucial pre-arrival instructions even in high-risk childbirth situations such as breech birth, and safely prioritize calls. A prerequisite of taking the course is CPR certification.

Scott Freitag, director of communications for the Salt Lake City fire department and president of medical dispatch standards body National Academies of Emergency Dispatch, said Acadian's certification assures quality training and a commitment to excellence for all Acadian's PERS accounts. “If someone contacts the communication center—when they actually talk with an operator—that operator is going to be trained and certified in determining the type and severity of emergency medical problem the caller is having,” Freitag said. “The second piece of it is that the operators will now be able to provide dispatch life support, which is support provided by dispatchers or operators that can help somebody if they need to provide CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, control bleeding, open an airway, or deliver a baby. The operator can now follow a scripted protocol that can provide medical advice to the callers while medical responders are in route.” NAED has been pursuing its mission of EMD, fire, police, and public safety telecommunications standards review since 1988.

“We've been in PERS monitoring for 10 years,” Acadian's Savoie said. “All our operators can now handle all alarms—security, fire, and medical. This is just another level we wanted to take them to.”