This week, we honor the Hennepin EMS Emergency Medical Dispatchers along with telecommunicators across the nation in National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week for their hard work and dedication to their field in Public Safety Dispatching. They are the Thin Gold Line of Public Safety.

Our Hennepin EMS EMD’s work closely with the field paramedics, management staff, and our other partnering Public Safety Answering Point agencies, to ensure calls are answered and dispatched. Our EMD’s are responsible for West-MRCC, 9-1-1 call-taking, providing Pre-Arrival Instructions to the public, dispatching ambulances, and working through major incidents. Our dedicated EMD’s must constantly multi-task and prioritize their work throughout their day every day. A lot of the work for the EMD goes unseen to the outside and the most they are “seen” is through radio communications or on the other end of the telephone. It is an amazing talent our EMD’s have that get the job done each day!

In 2018, the dedicated Hennepin EMS EMD’s provided 9-1-1 Pre-Arrival instructions to over 25,100 callers. Some of these instructions to the public were for cardiac arrest, choking, severe bleeding, and imminent childbirth. In December 2014, the Hennepin EMS Communication Center began to take 9-1-1 Pre-Arrival calls from the Meeker County Sheriff’s Office as part of Hennepin Healthcare’s Community Outreach. In 2018, the EMD’s provided the rural citizens of Meeker County with 102 Pre-Arrival instructions. Hennepin EMS EMD’s working as the West-MRCC dispatcher provided over 124,000 Patient-Information-Relays from the field to hospitals throughout the region. Hennepin EMS EMD’s worked over 650 major incidents, providing resources and information to Incident Commanders and other responding agencies.

Please take the time to thank our EMD’s over the next week in celebrating National Public Safety Telecommunicator Week!