In October 2011, the Chattahoochee River 911 Authority (ChatComm) began answering and dispatching Dunwoody’s 9-1-1 calls. Police service calls constitute approximately 90% of the City’s emergency call volume. Since the transition, the average amount of time needed to dispatch police calls has been cut in half, moving from an average of 4 minutes and 33 seconds down to an average of 2 minutes and 13 seconds.
DeKalb County continues to provide fire and emergency medical service to the City including the dispatching of those resources. Since the transition, calls requiring fire or emergency
medical service have been transferred using the industry standard, one-button transfer. Fire and emergency medical service calls constitute approximately 10% of the City’s emergency
call volume or roughly 10 calls per day. The average amount of time needed to transfer calls between the two centers is approximately 90 seconds.
To surpass the industry standard one-button transfer method and eliminate the associated transfer time, staff has been coordinating the development of a Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD)-to-CAD interface to connect ChatComm’s CAD system to DeKalb’s CAD system. Once completed, this interface will allow the call information for fire and emergency medical service calls to be electronically shared and eliminate the transfer time.
At the January 27th, Dunwoody City Council Meeting former Councilor Danny Ross
played a 911 call where Chatcomm answered quickly but a fair amount of time passed before DeKalb 911 answered and we were told by Mr. Ross that the Dunwoody Police were not dispatched as the Council had believed was the case on all medical emergencies. At that time, I asked for a formal reply regarding this incident be provided to Council as we were under the assumption that Dunwoody PD indeed followed up on
all Medical Calls.
The complete audio of the 911 call is
available here and the public comment by Danny Ross is shown below and starts at the 29 minute mark.
Council received an email on Tuesday explaining the circumstances as outlined below and again in
Chief Grogan's Memo. Long story, short - a Dunwoody Police Supervisor called off the police presence on this medical call as DeKalb Fire was already rolling and was just a block away thereby assuring that DeKalb Fire would arrive first. Policemen make life and death judgements everyday and this decision to defer to DeKalb Fire was made by a fully informed experienced officer with the responsibility to maximize safety within 13 square miles. DeKalb Fire was a block away and we deferred to them to handle and I am satisfied with that answer. We have also identified a Chatcomm error in the recording and this is being addressed with them for corrections and retraining as they pride themselves as being a
Center of Excellence.
Email from
Mr. Warren Hutmacher, City Manager
1. Until
the CAD to CAD is implemented there will always be a delay on medical and fire
calls due to the call transfer from one 911 center to another 911 center.
There is nothing about this call that differs from our experience with
the one button transfer since the cutover to ChatComm.
2. The
ChatComm policy regarding starting Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) within 13
seconds of an attempt to transfer the call or 3 rings was not followed
properly. ChatComm will investigate that further and handle any personnel
issues related to the incident.
3. The
caller was never placed on hold, but instead was able to hear when the call was
put in the cue hold by DeKalb 911.
4. Dunwoody
Police were dispatched as per the policy and current practice. A Dunwoody
Police Supervisor cancelled the call for Dunwoody PD based on their best
judgment at the time. The primary factor related to our cancellation of
our response was that DeKalb Fire was already in route to the call with the
appropriate personnel to handle the medical call.
5. DeKalb Fire and
Rescue was very quick in their response to the scene."
http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/24647716/residents-call-for-changes-to-dunwoodys-911-system
Crier - Council angry over delayed 911 call, no police dispatch
Reporter - Dunwoody council member asks for report on emergency call placed on hold
The City of Dunwoody has taken on this complex CAD 2 CAD initiative as it is in the best interests of the community as it should provide a Gold Standard level of service that is not available in communities who continue to use the one button transfer method. This project took a huge amount of cooperation and communication between various governments and computer vendors to work out the details. Sometimes change happens slower than you would prefer when others are reluctant to change, therefore I am very pleased that we are in the final stages of this proposed project.
The latest update provided to Council is very promising as there is a tentative to go live on March 1st if not before.
