NFPA Journal - Fall 2023 - 33

The biggest factor that determined call answering
and processing times was whether the PSAP
followed a standard like NFPA 1225, the researchers
found. The average call processing time for PSAPs
that did not follow a standard was nearly 7 minutes,
compared to 1 minute and 18 seconds for PSAPs that
did follow NFPA 1225, the report found. Only 27 percent
of 911 calls were processed in under 60 seconds
in PSAPs that didn't follow a standard, versus 65
percent of calls for those that did follow NFPA 1225.
" That difference is huge and shows that, if nothing
else, these dispatch centers need to be setting goals, "
Fuller said. " They need to have some time benchmarks
to follow. " More than half of the records that
Fuller and his researchers viewed were from PSAPs
that did not follow " any current standard, " he said.
Chuck Berdan, who retired in 2000 as director
of one of the busiest PSAPs in California and now
works as an industry consultant, said that the lack
of adherence to standards in the industry doesn't
surprise him. " I've worked all over country the last
10 years as a consultant, and the number of agencies
that track compliance in call answering I could
probably count on one hand, " said Berdan, who
chairs the committee for NFPA 1221, Standard for
the Installation, Maintenance, and Use of Emergency
Services Communications Systems.
Almost every PSAP uses what's known as computer-aided
dispatch, or CAD, systems to prioritize
and record calls and dispatch responding agencies.
Some PSAPS would like to keep better call processing
data but lack the technical expertise with their
CAD systems, Berdan said. Other call centers dismiss
the idea of following standards altogether or
don't even consider it unless something happens
to draw the ire of the public, like an unflattering
local news report.
" That's when politicians start asking questions
about what standards they follow. And if the answer
is none, the government might say, 'you will follow
the standard'-but often no one follows up on it, "
Berdan said.
The PSAP representatives that Fuller spoke to
as part of the study were critical of NFPA 1225's
emphasis on time benchmarks, which they deemed
less important than ensuring that 911 operators
take the time to get the right information. " [PSAPs]
thought that these time frames aren't practical and
that they don't matter as much as accuracy does, "
Fuller said. " What they really harped on was that
the time frames needed to be extended if agencies
were going to follow them. " A common refrain heard
by the researchers from PSAP representatives was,
" We can do it accurately or we can do it efficiently,
but not both, " he said.
The NFPA 1225 technical committee has formed
a task group to look at the survey's results and will
consider whether the time requirements should be
adjusted, said Jay Dornseif, who works at a leading
dispatch software company and chairs the NFPA
1225 committee. " There are quality assurance
requirements in the standard, but it's true that some
of the biggest things in the document are around
how fast calls are answered, transferred, and processed, "
he said. " We will definitely be looking at
what that correct balance is between time and quality
and if things should be adjusted. "
While the 10-second requirement to answer a call
is widely accepted, the requirement to process the
call in a minute or less has been " debated for years, "
said Berdan, who has been on the NFPA 1221 committee
for nearly three decades. (As part of NFPA's
ongoing consolidation of responder documents,
NFPA 1221 and NFPA 1061, Standard for Public
Safety Telecommunications Personnel Professional
Qualifications, were combined last year to form
NFPA 1225.) The time requirements are there for
an important reason, he said. " The faster help is
given to a person over the phone, the more likely
" There are quality assurance requirements
in the standard, but it's true that
some of the biggest things are around
how fast calls are answered, transferred,
and processed. "
they have a positive outcome. If it takes three minutes
to figure out how to dispatch the call, that's
two minutes longer that counts against their survivability
time, " Berdan said. " I would argue against
the contention that operators will do a shoddy job
because they're in a hurry. We're looking for three
basic pieces information: location, phone number,
and what's wrong. After that, you can dispatch. The
committee has generally felt that this can be done
in 60 seconds or less. "
FUNDING, STAFFING, AND TECH
The lack of standardization was far from the only
issue facing call centers: funding, staffing, and technology
challenges also played significant roles in
slowing down PSAP operations and performance,
Fuller said. In some PSAPs, the CAD is outdated and
unable to handle the increased call volumes that
have occurred in the years since it was installed.
In other instances, CADs in different PSAPs may
not be compatible with each other, which makes it
tricky when a primary PSAP needs to transfer certain
emergency calls to more specialized secondary
PSAPs. " In that case, instead of automatically transferring
the call through the computers, somebody
usually has to pick up the telephone and manually
call the secondary PSAP and relay the information, "
said Ken Riddle, a co-author on the Foundation
study and a 28-year veteran of Las Vegas Fire &
Rescue. " That kind of issue is not uncommon. "
Other technical snafus can also surface. For
instance, from June 2016 through July 2017, the city
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