Investigating 9-1-1 Call Experience for Medical Emergencies for Future Design

Since the late 1960s, medical emergency services have used phones to share information between the caller (e.g., a patient or a caregiver) and call taker (e.g., 9-1-1 dispatcher) to dispatch the appropriate first responders. However, there are many limitations to these emergency call services. Precious time can be lost due to the amount of time required to communicate with the call taker, explain the emergency situation, and clarify information. Other concerning situations are where someone cannot speak English. The exchange between the caller and call taker comes down to whether there is an accurate understanding of the incident so that proper help can be readily provided. Advancements in medical emergency call systems can lead to a better understanding of the emergency, faster action, and most importantly, a smaller number of preventable deaths. There have been some recent research efforts attempting to develop the next generation of 9-1-1 services in North America. The challenge is that there has been little exploration into how such services and technologies should be designed and how they can fit within the workflow of current 9-1-1 call services. To design the next generation of 9-1-1 call experiences for medical emergencies, the current state of 9-1-1 call experiences must be investigated. This research examines how patients, or those calling for a patient, experienced phone calls to 9-1-1, what challenges they faced, how technology experts can design novel technologies to support their needs when encountering a medical emergency, and what the enablers and hindrances of incorporating technologies into current 9-1-1 systems are. As technology advances, we can evolve the services for medical emergencies. This research can inform the design of the next 9-1-1 calling system for medical emergencies to provide faster and more accurate care through improved communication

A Bottom-up Approach to Effectively Implementing a Good Samaritan Policy at Bryant University

The rising numbers of substance consumption on college campuses are becoming a public concern for higher educational institutions across the United States. The thesis studies the relationship between state laws and private higher education institution laws in regards to substance abuse. Examining state laws and private universities Medical Amnesty and Good Samaritan laws were used to determine what would effectively replace Bryant University’s current Substance Abuse Policy. The current policy lacks an educational element along with stressing the word of mouth ideology that students are protected when in need of drug or alcohol assistance in a medical situation. This is problematic because if a student has not needed medical attention and were not told about the policy, they would not be aware about it. Without a written document that students can turn to, they may not understand the policy or know that there are protections. A literature review was conducted to better understand how a bottom-up campaign or grassroots campaign can better produce an effective policy at a university along with seeing the role psychological ideologies like the social normative behavior theory, self-discrepancy theory, modeling theory, self-consciousness theory and self-monitor theory are used to explain how students create a culture or norm. Despite limited published research on my topic, I was able to analyze five cases that pointed to the importance of adding a Good Samaritan policy to an institutions current alcohol and drug policy. An exploratory study was conducted to determine if the current policy is failing in the eyes of administration and the students. Research conducted with the Student for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) concluded that, the addition of a Good Samaritan clause in a current alcohol and drug policy, backed by an educational platform, will provide students with accurate, informative information allowing students to understand safe substance use and not make decisions based on university consequences and fear. Then, 337 private schools were examined and evaluated to determine what key attributes created an effective policy. The research concluded that an effective Medical Amnesty/Good Samaritan Policy at a private institution was written and widely publicized; covered the caller, victim and organization; covered both alcohol and drug medical emergencies; and provided educational, not disciplinary sanctions to prevent the student from further having to request the policy. Ultimately the project adopts an in-depth approach to a student-run, bottom-up campaign regarding substance use on Bryant University’s campus. Demanding that the inclusion of a Good Samaritan Policy within Bryant University’s current Alcohol and Drugs Policy is the answer

Next Generation Automated Emergency Calls

The Internet of Things (IoT) potentials to transform our modern society into smart environments that facilitate living and boost all types of transactions are becoming more and more evident as the number of interconnections between the physical and the virtual world keeps increasing. Cyber-physical systems, wide end-to end connectivity and handling of big data are some of the mainstream concepts brought forth to materialise the IoT umbrella. Yet, emergency services, a domain of paramount importance to society, reveal multiple challenges for the adoption of applications that capitalise on the capabilities of smart devices and the interoperability among heterogeneous platforms. In this paper, we present the continuing work [4] on next generation automated (non- human initiated) emergency calls by specifying the pathway to implementation of NG eCall and sensor-enabled emergency services

An Exploration of the Calls Received by the Kentucky Council on Problem Gambling Help Hotline

Studies that focus on crisis hotlines are abundant, however very few deal with the subject of gambling. The literature reviewed examines gambling as an addiction and the general existence of hotlines. This study examines the use of the hotline provided by the Kentucky Council on Problem Gambling (KYCPG) in a dichotomous breakdown of gender. There are some significant differences between males and females, particularly regarding criminal behavior in the effort to recoup gambling losses or to continue gambling. An additional breakdown of seasonal and regional call logs further analyzes the use of the KYCPG hotline

The effect of role assignment and personality subtypes in simulation on critical thinking development, situation awareness, and perceived self-efficacy of nursing baccalaureate students.

Previous studies have evaluated the effectiveness of high fidelity patient simulators (HFPS) on nursing training. However, a gap exists on the effects of role assignment and student personality subtypes in simulation scenarios. This thesis explored the effects of role assignment and personality on critical thinking, situation awareness, and self-efficacy in baccalaureate-level nursing students. Using researcher-developed tools and altering previously validated tools to fit the simulation scenario, the effects of role assignment and personality were determined. Role assignment and personality were found to have a significant effect on critical thinking and self-efficacy, but not situation awareness. It was determined that roles that require the participant to be more involved with the simulation scenario had better performance scores than the roles that did not require the participant to be as involved. With this study, future multi-student simulation scenarios can be adjusted knowing the impact different roles and personalities can have on outcomes

"911, Is This an Emergency?": How 911 Call-Takers Extract, Interpret, and Classify Caller Information

Policing in America is in crisis. Much of the nation is outraged by the level and distribution of encounters and arrests, infringements on civil liberties, and excessive uses of force by the police. Prior scholarship typically has attributed these problems to features of officer-initiated policing—specifically police officers’ decisions in who to stop and when to arrest. By contrast, reactive or call-driven policing has not received comparable scholarly attention. Yet, in many places roughly half of all police-work involves responding to the public’s calls-for-service. In these cases, a series of interactions take place between 911 callers, 911 call-takers, and dispatchers before the police arrive at the scene, all of which can produce information that shapes police responses. This dissertation is squarely focused on the role of 911 in American policing. It aims to answer the question of how 911 call-takers mediate caller demands and impact policing in the field. To answer this central research question, the author worked for two years as a 911 call-taker in Southeast Michigan, which allowed her to analyze the kinds of problems callers report, the decisions that call-takers must make, the challenges and dilemmas that they face, and the ways in which training and organizational norms shape the call-taking process. Using a mix of quantitative, qualitative, and conversation analytic methods, this dissertation reveals that the process through which private citizens’ requests become police responses is complex and presents unique challenges to policing. The chapters aim to show how the contemporary 911 system has come to offer the public wide latitude over the scope of police work. By dissecting the day-to-day duties of 911 call-takers, the chapters shine a light on two critical call-taking functions. First, the author reveals an overlooked call-taker function—risk appraisal. Through unpacking precisely how call-takers appraise risk, namely through extraction, interpretation, and classification of caller information, this dissertation provides a framework to evaluate call-taker actions. Second, the author complicates the previously documented gatekeeping function by showing how organizational rules and norms can constrain the ability of 911 call-takers to limit the public’s heavy reliance on the system. Taken together, the chapters find that call-takers exercise discretion when performing these critical functions and their actions impact police responses. This dissertation puts forth recommendations aimed at encouraging police agencies to reconceptualize the call-taking function in an effort to enable call-takers to more intelligently deploy discretion. Recommendations include developing protocols and criteria that empower call-takers to prevent inappropriate requests from receiving police services, training call-takers to assess risk in more sophisticated ways, distributing call-taker best practices to peers, and using technology to assist call-takers in preserving caller uncertainty. The author hopes that these findings and recommendations will help improve police encounters with the public and spur readers to strongly consider 911’s role in policing in the future.PHDPublic Policy & SociologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163046/1/jgillool_1.pd

UNDERSTANDING CROWD DYNAMICS AND PSYCHOLOGY FOR BETTER EMERGENCY RESPONSE

Large events around the world—including sporting matches, music festivals, religious events, and other outdoor gatherings—continue to result in crowd crush injuries and deaths. Examined closely, crowd crush incidents tend to have the same causal factors that could have been addressed and avoided. When they are not prevented, the cases are often not recognized as a crowd crush, so an effective response is delayed. In crowd crush fatalities, compressive asphyxia is the most common cause of death. The treatment of patients depends on the timely response of emergency medical services to resuscitate patients. Through case studies of the 1989 Hillsborough soccer match, the 2021 Astroworld music festival, and the 2022 Itaewon, South Korea, crowd crush, this thesis reveals deficiencies in responding to these tragedies. Event organizers and first responders share responsibility in handling these events and must coordinate their efforts to prevent injuries caused by dynamic crowds. This thesis recommends that fire departments participate directly in the planning process and management of the event as one of the primary stakeholders. Furthermore, training in crowd dynamics and safety should be a part of the first responder's knowledge base and education.Copyright is reserved by the copyright owner.Civilian, Los Angeles County Fire Departmen

Characterizing 311 System Reactions to a Global Health Emergency

Communities are complex, multi-dimensional systems that react to crises in a variety of different ways. Based on the municipal services provided to a community, 311 calls can be used as indicators of the different dimensions of that community’s reaction to a crisis situation. To improve Citizen Relationship Management, municipalities can analyze and even augment their 311 systems to capture specific types of information about an ongoing crisis. New York City did this by adding specific category types and descriptors to their 311 system, in response to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic. This paper provides an initial look at the 311 data for New York City and the variety of community behaviors that it is able to capture as a reaction to the pandemic and the associated actions taken by the authorities to respond to the situation

ACUTA Journal of Telecommunications in Higher Education

In This Issue Disasters, Emergencies, and Residence Hall Communications GWU\u27s Safety Systems Built Around Telecommunications ln the Face of Disaster Advertorial: Contact 101 : Strategies for Emergency Notification University Approaches to Emergencies and Emergency Communication A Reasoned Response to Crisis Digital Forensics: What ls lt and Why Should I Care? Exploits, Guidelines, and Vulnerabilities: Protecting Digital Resources Classifying Events, lncidents and Disasters President\u27s Message From the Executive Director Here\u27s My Advic