Alexandria, VA – The Willard (OH) Police Department recently implemented the APCO Institute Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) Program. The center employs 23 staff members and provides fire and law enforcement dispatch services for the City of Norwalk. With APCO EMD certification, the department’s staff is now specially trained to provide medical assistance to callers while emergency responders are en route.

The APCO Institute EMD Program is based on national standards and provides agencies with a systematic way to manage emergency medical service (EMS) resources in an organized and effective manner. APCO’s EMD Program enables trained dispatchers – through the use of guidecards and software – to quickly assess a caller’s emergency situation and to provide consistent, medically approved assistance over the phone while trained EMS responders are en route to the scene.

“Often, the immediate medical assistance that an EMD-certified dispatcher provides can mean the difference between life and death,” says APCO Institute Director Julie Ray, CPE. “Since APCO established its EMD Program in 1990, our customers have related countless stories of lives being saved because of the program.”

Willard Fire Department Captain John Weiss has witnessed the lifesaving benefits of APCO’s EMD Program, “In addition to providing CPR instructions to lay people on the scene, they have directed bystanders to administer aspirin and nitroglycerin to patients, and gathered information from callers for first responders that enable them to reduce the time they have to spend on-scene before transporting patients.”

As dispatcher Ashley Maurer explains, “The APCO EMD training has allowed me to no longer feel helpless. From the first cardiac call I took when I was able to instruct someone having a possible heart attack to take nitro, to the first time I instructed a bystander to perform CPE on a drug-overdose patient, I realized that all of the training was worth it.

“Minutes save lives,” she adds, “and I’m very proud to now be a part of that with my APCO EMD training.”

About the APCO Institute (www.apcointl.org/institute)
The APCO Institute is the training division of the APCO International and is the largest provider of certification and training programs for public safety communications professionals in the world. APCO provides Emergency Medical Dispatch products and services to more than 600 communications centers worldwide.

APCO International® (www.apcointl.org)
APCO International is the world’s oldest and largest organization of public safety communications professionals and supports the largest U.S. membership base of any public safety association. It serves the needs of public safety communications practitioners worldwide – and the welfare of the general public as a whole – by providing complete expertise, professional development, technical assistance, advocacy and outreach.