Communication in the paper
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  1. #1
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    Communication in the paper

    This is a long article posted by the Sun-Sentinel,

    I would first like to thank our dispatchers. You are doing the best you can. Heads will soon be rolling.

    Beleaguered 911 operators beg for better training, tools, treatment

    The work of Broward County's 911 operators is as serious as a heart attack, a missing child or gunfire at a school.

    They hold lives in their hands. But by county officials' measurements, their performance isn't good enough.

    The failures of Broward's system, one of the largest 911 emergency networks in America, have been laid on operators' shoulders. They've been blamed for dangerous errors, castigated for being ignorant of local geography, and told they failed to meet call-answering standards every single month since the county took over the 911 system last October.

    After months in the spotlight, operators are stung by what they term unfair criticism and unreasonable expectations. Some are physically ill and emotionally drained, working mandatory 12-hour shifts — without full overtime pay. They're grown-ups, but must ask permission to go the bathroom, and when they do, every second is noted.

    They complain they don't have the training, staffing and equipment they need.

    "And then to be told we're not making stats,'' said longtime dispatcher Jody Hagar, "it's like being beaten every day when you come to work.''

    The transition from eight city-operated call centers to three — in Sunrise, Pembroke Pines and Coconut Creek — has been a rocky one, and troubles abide. Only Coral Springs and Plantation refused to join; the remaining 29 cities in Broward joined the countywide system.

    The system's No. 1 goal was to field all 911 calls without having to transfer callers to a different dispatch center. The problem was prevalent because cellular phone signals can bounce off a nearby tower and send the call into another city's dispatch center.

    Though the system is meeting that goal, and call transfers have been dramatically reduced, the county has focused intensely on its failures.

    Calls aren't always being answered quickly enough during the busiest hours, the budget is bursting, and management is lacking, according to the county's head of the system, Rick Carpani. A consultant is expected to be hired soon to sleuth out what's wrong.

    The county owns and pays for the system but hired the Broward Sheriff's Office to operate it. As troubles continue, a schism between the county and the sheriff's office is widening. Sheriff's dispatch system managers worry the county will terminate the contract and hire someone else.

    "They don't want to see us succeed,'' said Lisa Zarazinski, the sheriff's director of regional communications. "No success has been documented by the county."


    At the busy central dispatch center in Sunrise on a typical Thursday this month, the room hums with the sound of operators soothing frantic callers and dispatchers guiding help to them.

    Hagar directs fire and police units to emergencies. She watches three screens and manages two mouse devices.

    Hagar, who was pulled from a quality assurance team to work the phones because of staffing shortages, was simultaneously monitoring nine incidents.

    She and other dispatchers were following the case of a 10-year-old missing from a McDonald's in Lighthouse Point. A Broward Sheriff's helicopter was sent to help.

    She juggled her cases while keeping tabs on the cops she dispatched.

    "12 Bravo 2, are you 10-4?''

    After a call, Hagar doesn't always know whether a patient lived or a bad guy was caught.

    "Being a dispatcher is like reading a book and never knowing the end of the story," she said.

    This was a good day, though: The missing child was found unharmed.

    In the next cubicle, Tonya Hamilton is one of three dispatchers fielding reports for Fort Lauderdale.

    It's a busy city, with a high call volume and lots of red, or priority, urgent calls that may have violent elements, said Suzanne Lowe, site manager for Central Broward Regional Communications.

    "The dispatchers have to be on high alert and have to coordinate with each other to make sure the entire city is alerted about a situation," Lowe said.

    Hamilton, a former teacher, worked the phones for the sheriff's office for 16 years before the 911 consolidation.

    She said she knows Fort Lauderdale's hot spots and has studied maps well enough so that she could drive a cab in the city, her new territory.

    Calls involving children are most memorable "because they're helpless," Hamilton said. "Having been a school teacher kicks in for me."

    As if on cue, she dispatches responders to a call for a 1-year-old boy, unconscious and not breathing. As she handles the call, for which the call taker has changed the address, a supervisor paces behind her, monitoring her work.


    Hamilton and the supervisor tensely await information about the baby. This day, the responders arrived safely. About five minutes after Hamilton has dispatched them, a firefighter reports that the baby is breathing and conscious.

    "We do a good job," Hamilton exhaled, briefly relaxing. "I really do like my job."

    But the tension wears on operators.

    Seventy people filled chairs and stood along the walls this summer during a meeting at the Federation of Public Employees union's Plantation office. Dispatchers described the pressure to meet standards county officials say they consistently fail. Workers may be undertrained, slow or new to the job, or there might not be enough of them on duty.

    "They're trying to run this like a call center," union representative JoAnne Alvarez told members at the gathering. "These are life and death emergencies."

    One dispatcher said she was on the phone for 42 minutes handling a suicide call. How could she be free to answer other calls?

    Zarazinski said the county built its budget and staffing estimates on 2010 figures, and that both sides underestimated how much training would be needed for the operators.

    County commissioners raised property taxes to pay for the system, but did so on a 5-4 split vote, and might not be willing to spend much more.

    Without serious slashing, the sheriff's office was headed toward blowing its $37.7 million 911 budget.

    So there were cuts: operators working mandatory 12-hour shifts are paid for only two of the extra four hours. The remaining hours are comp time, said Robert Pusins, head of the sheriff's department of community services.

    Pusins said the union leadership agreed to it, and it's expected to last only until the new budget year begins on Oct. 1.

    But operators say they can't book comp time. Besides, they're working so hard, they're too tired to enjoy free days.

    "We're all going to crash and burn," one operator said of gruelling, 60-hour work weeks for many. Colleagues described feeling depressed, anxious, stressed out, overwhelmed.

    "Sometimes you get off this radio,'' Hagar said, "and you feel like you got hit by a bus.''

    Zarazinski promised to bring experts from Nova Southeastern University to teach stress management skills. To boost morale, employees are allowed to wear blue jeans.

    Many couldn't take the stress. Since cities started joining the new system in November 2013, 106 operators quit, according to the sheriff's office. Eight were fired. A new operator requires eight months of training before flying solo.

    The job pays $32,090 to $60,967. But eight operators earned six figures this year because of the overtime.

    The pace is unrelenting.

    The roughly 363 call takers and dispatchers have handled 1.6 million emergency, non-emergency and alarm calls already this year. Callers report incidents ranging from flipped cars, to a stolen cellphone, to a mailman bit by a dog. Victims of domestic violence, income tax fraud and rape dial 911, too.

    Often, 911 callers don't know where they are, or can't provide an accurate description of what's going on, or can't be heard clearly, especially when 80 percent of them are on cellphones, sometimes with spotty reception.

    Police and fire departments complain call takers jeopardize lives by sending them "blind" to calls and not preparing them for what they're racing toward, what a patient is suffering from or if paramedics will encounter armed violence.

    Fire chiefs also complain that dispatchers don't know their geography, and send trucks and ambulances to incorrect addresses, increasing trips and response times and delaying care.

    Meanwhile, the county's equipment is a recurrent source of frustration.

    Radios used to communicate with emergency personnel regularly fail, and the computer-aided dispatch system crashed recently, sending call takers to pen and paper like in olden days.

    "Dispatching is stressful,'' Hagar said. "Sometimes there's factors we are not in control of. Do we have people that aren't doing do their best? Yes. Do we have people doing absolutely everything in their power and it's still not enough? Yes.''

    bwallman@tribune.com or 954-356-4541

  2. #2
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    Must have been taken down already, because it doesn't even show up through an article search for "911".

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
    Must have been taken down already, because it doesn't even show up through an article search for "911".
    It was taken down to be corrected, due to typos and some quotes.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
    It was taken down to be corrected, due to typos and some quotes.
    In that case, it would be nice to see the busy-hour stats added to the article which show Coral Springs and Plantation's communications actually scoring worse than BSO when held to the county's standard for scoring. I would be surprised if the Sun-Sentinel interview with the BSO Communications union representative did not include a discussion of said revelation...

    While beleaguered 911 operators beg for better training, tools, and treatment, we also beg for better recognition after being previously smeared by the Sun-Sentinel's apples-to-oranges comparison here.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
    In that case, it would be nice to see the busy-hour stats added to the article which show Coral Springs and Plantation's communications actually scoring worse than BSO when held to the county's standard for scoring. I would be surprised if the Sun-Sentinel interview with the BSO Communications union representative did not include a discussion of said revelation...

    While beleaguered 911 operators beg for better training, tools, and treatment, we also beg for better recognition after being previously smeared by the Sun-Sentinel's apples-to-oranges comparison here.
    I have no doubt it was mentioned.

  6. #6
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    badge bunny

    Quote Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
    I have no doubt it was mentioned.
    Just get back to banging Deputies...let's go ladies

  7. #7
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    lazy slug

    Quote Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
    Just get back to banging Deputies...let's go ladies
    grow up and get a life

  8. #8
    10-8w10-7countycommisnrs
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    Until this squares into circles regional catastrophe is set up correctly all the micromanaging in the world will not fix things. Before 2013, when the county was given the reins, with call transferred or not, there was not so many errors. There was efficiency at work in proper interrogation which can not be proper in the 30 seconds the county deems a sufficient time frame to deduce a true emergency, or is the caller upset about their home having been robbed, and who would not be?; but not a home invasion in progress does a burglarized house while you were at work-make. 30 seconds is what causes the incorrect addresses and blind calls the fire rescue is complaining about. Funny really because that is what the fire chiefs pushed for. Thirty seconds is enough on fire rescue side. "I need paramedics..." "Why do you need paramedics?" "My mother (adult) or (child)fell". Than, hopefully that person will know where they are and the viper phone system (voip based) won't start getting full of static or simply shut down sound. Boom. 30 seconds, hit transmit, begin the proqa (the beginning of the downfall of police based 9/11). Instead it's about fire rescue and try to remember police concerns. Both should have stayed seperate specialties. When it was, the 'stats' were 100% for fire call taker and dispatch, with rarely a mistake on where they were sent. These inaccuracies come from citizens running a 9/11 center with quantity as its goal. That 30 seconds criteria causes more delays then the tried and true of old. The Where and What and Who and When staples of relevant police call interrogation cannot be replaced by rescues " Get an address and send rescue, ways. Fire rescue has always started to a call with no more information then a basic sick person or fell ...and how sick and from how far comes later on. Running blind is the norm for them, and before this 30 seconds hit transmit OR ELSE operation is what the problem is. Horrifying as that fact is, this is the new expectations that have created delays in a job where seconds truly count. Not in dispatch time frames but correct and fully clarified interrogation. Than. Than you hit transmit. Not because your afraid of the OR ELSE....But because you KNOW.

  9. #9
    10-8w10-7countycommisnrs
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    As well the call centers that should accommodate a 24/7 environment. Where employees will have to sleep for up to 72 hours in emergency situations. Should have more than 4 bathroom stalls (2 men's and 2 women's stalls). In a building where there were 3 close bathrooms within the centre and a shower. And 5 or 6 bathrooms further down the hall. Along with 3 more floors, so 15 stalls. Give or take. Flooding began just at the end of the one 72 hours shift. How long before flooding begins for over 40 people 24/7? And these new, raised our taxes to create this regional concept, buildings have no sleeping room. Not as in rooms. Call takers will bring clothes, sleeping bags, non perishables. And sleep on the floor. We have done so in past with out complaint. But there is no floor space to sleep on. In buildings rented out now, not owned as the Cochran building was. Call takers are not allowed. Not welcomed. In any other part of the building. But if Erika drops by then we can have access to a room down the hall to sleep in. Of course,9/11 is sort of essential.

  10. #10
    10-8w10-7countycommisnrs
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    And. Also decided by the county now running 9/11. The geography. Favoring fire rescue. South end West Park or Pembroke park deputies (falling central also are Weston and Dania as well as the Hollywood international airport)are dispatched by central dispatch. That means that when a shooting happens or any emergency in need of Davie Patrol or Hallendale officers or Hollywood or the city of Miramar and Pembroke pines an unnecessary and officer safety combine radios with a patch effort is now a concern where before Oct 1,2013 this was a mainly streamlined mission to accomplish. The things we take for granted. Yet now every day the now contracted out Broward sheriff 9/11 operators are still. Still. Doing exemplary work with a severely impaired set up, and often faulty equipment. Yes. In spite of the county's insistence that "we are falling short..." They have fallen far shorter. To the citizens of Broward , which I and my family are also tax paying members. This regional communications has created higher taxes (which I had not known) and added stress on an already stress filled job. We do not need more training, or micromanaging. We need solid support and a regional centre that makes sense. A center that is set up from the supervisors as well as every position the job requires. With equipment that can equal and surpass the task of any given day. We need solid training from the start and not fail one test in the many of tests yet to be faced before coming onto the floor. Instead, build up the weak spots of the trainee. Start support and create loyalty and inspire the people wanting to work helping others. Prepare them instead for the hard task ahead of them. If someone fails the final test, then letting them go is the only option. This fire on the first fail though is not sending in personnel that are passing when they get on the floor. Less so, it seems. We want, or I speaking as a tax payer of Broward county, want career 9/11 and police dispatchers handling an emergency for me or my family perhaps someday. The turn over creates trainees always because they are not allowed the tone to become seasoned. Until at least 2 years under the belt the concern of un-seasoned call takers will always be the case. This profession takes time to truly learn. Experience. And, a work place that enhances instead of detracts from a job that involves lives. Every. Single. Day.

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