| Every year I enjoy attending Navigator, the annual meeting of the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch. At this year’s conference, held last month in Las Vegas, we were again proud to honor graduates of the Communications Center Manager course during the opening ceremonies. Fitch & Associates created the program with IAED more than 15 years ago and it now has more than 400 alumni.
In their session at Navigator, Captain Petar Hossick of the Bend Fire Department and Megan Craig, director of training for the 911 Center for Deschutes County, in central Oregon, highlighted a key leadership component that we emphasize in our courses: the ability to foster collaboration. It is one of the most important traits for an EMS leader in this era of growing integration—and, in my estimation, a grossly underdeveloped talent.
Captain Hossick and Ms. Craig began a journey of collaboration four years ago to improve their community’s sudden cardiac arrest survival rates. They realized that to make a difference they needed to work as a team to implement Telephone CPR in dispatch and High Performance CPR in the field. Although the fire department and communications center worked together every day, collaborating on this effort brought them closer and showed them the difference they could make when they truly collaborated. Telecommunicators and field EMS providers learned about each other’s roles, tracked system performance data and celebrated success together with survivors. |
