Who Are We Punishing – A Tale of AVL

Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) was adopted by BCAS a short time ago.  In broad terms, AVL is a system by which a cel phone type arangement using GPS signals sends information to our CAD system showing a live version of where all our ambulances are.  It is a great help for confirming who is the closest car to a call, assuring callers that an ambulance isn’t far away from them and, heaven forbid, finding an ambulance that’s been involved in an accident on a far away, dark country road.

Several of our fellow paramedics find it necessary to unplug the power cord to their AVL modem in the ambulance.  Aside from the obvious safety implications here, what are they proving?

I think it’s not well known how the data for AVL is managed.  In the dispatch centre, we know pretty quickly who’s AVL is not functioning and who’s is functioning fine.  We can see the little blips a moving vehicle displays and we can see a stationary unit that should be moving.  This is easy peasy but often not reported due to the EMD being too busy to notice or having bigger fish to fry.  The system ‘polls’ each unit on a scheduled basis either by time or distance depending on the status of the unit.  Every time a unit is polled, the data is logged.  EVERY TIME IT’S POLLED! 

These logs are for record keeping in our eyes and of no concern to the dispatch centre.  Management on the other hand, has the ability to easily sift through the log and look for patterns.  They can play a route taken by a particular unit last week as simply as you can watch a video of your trip to Mexico on your iPod.  They can tell who seems to have a problem keeping their modem plugged in and who doesn’t

I implore crew members:  Stop playing with the AVL unit.  It’s in your best interests.  I promise.

The Changes Roll In

A lot of things have changed over the months I have been away.  You may be surprised to hear I have some thoughts on them.

Looming Strike Action

The Ambulance Paramedics of BC (CUPE 873) will be in a position to strike as of April 1.  Let’s not delude ourselves, strike will happen.  The hardcore members of the union will be hardcore and the conservative members will be conservative.  My job as a leader on my team is to encourage the team to do the business we need to do.

In the dispatch centre, our team has discussed the looming job action and have acknowleged that we have some core responsibilities:

1. Using MPDS, assess calls in a consistent and respectful manner.
2. Do our best to get ambulances to patients.
3. Manage ambulances to get patients to the care they need.

Those core items should not be affected by any job action.  Staffing worries on the street and in the dispatch centre may affect response times, but we can’t let the public suffer (not to mention our fellow Brothers and Sisters).  This is about the employer.

AVL

 Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) hasn’t really changed how EMDs do business much at all.  It confirms most of the closest car decisions we make on a daily basis, but can’t be relied upon to pinpoint the locations of ambulances with 100% accuracy so, at best, it’s a nice toy for the EMDs. 

For the call takers, on the other hand, being able to tell a frantic call taker with even a modicum of accuracy that the ambulance coming for their loved one isn’t far away is a nice monkey off the EMCT’s back.

Supervisory Structure

I would say we finally have a supervisory team in place except one of our Dispatch Officers is leaving.  It’s nice to have some peers to bounce some ideas on or share some concerns with (see the next item).  Meeting a bit more often as a group would help.

Training

Holy crap there are a lot of students buzzing around.  I think we have around 19 EMD students in the centre in various stages of developement – from pupa to butterfly.  In a few short weeks, there will be a bundle of new call taker students following suit. 

I know we are short staffed, but it’s too much, too fast.  The second class of EMDs was too large for us to handle and their practicum time needs to be delayed to finish the first class off.  Who is going to precept the call taker calss?  Can you say burn out?  I can.  Watch – “Burn out”.  See?

… so what am I excited about?

I’m not sure why I am so excited about the room reorganization we have scheduled for later this month.  It seems silly.  I know it’s going to be the same shite, only in a different shape, but I’m all a twitter because of it.  The current format of the room was done without much input from front line staff.  The new layout seems to actually have been thought out rationally.  What a concept.