Union Disputes FDNY Response Times

[BryanLoader]

It sounds like maybe FDNY needs to address the root of the problem, namely incorrect or misunderstood information coming from dispatch. I'm not sure how prevalent the problem is, but if the union or the members can document at least some of the problems, maybe the politcos will get off their butts and improve dispatch.
We always operated under 1 dispatch system and still do. the training for a qualified 9-11 operator here is 9 months with the last 3 months at the desk under supervision. They receive their training from Police, Fire and Medics so they are a bit familiar with what each group does. Once a 9-11 call is dispatched, individual agencies take over comms, there can be updates from dispatch but it will go to Police, Fire, or EMS command. Proper, clear CAA English is absolutely mandatory.

[FFFRED]

It sounds like maybe FDNY needs to address the root of the problem, namely incorrect or misunderstood information coming from dispatch. I'm not sure how prevalent the problem is, but if the union or the members can document at least some of the problems, maybe the politcos will get off their butts and improve dispatch.
We always operated under 1 dispatch system and still do. the training for a qualified 9-11 operator here is 9 months with the last 3 months at the desk under supervision. They receive their training from Police, Fire and Medics so they are a bit familiar with what each group does. Once a 9-11 call is dispatched, individual agencies take over comms, there can be updates from dispatch but it will go to Police, Fire, or EMS command. Proper, clear CAA English is absolutely mandatory.

It has been docmented in unusual occurance reports and brought up by both unions. The Admin doesn't care as it is a project straight from the mayors office and they dont' care. They have already blamed an isloated misunderstanding for a screw up in the Bronx...they don't care.

The doctored times will be used in an attempt to close more companies...this past year the Mayor tried to close 16 companies....he lost....if he wins re-election, he will be comming back now with phony times to argue his position.

There are issues within issues and we dont' have the time and bandwidth to discuss all the aspects. As with most issues...the brief articles posted on here don't even begin to explore the real motivations and facts behind the rehtoric.

FTM-PTB

PS- For example our Dispatcher gets a ticket from the PD call taker that states HAZ-MAT and little else....so he sends out the HAZ-MAT response and we arrive to find what? A CO alarm battery going dead in a project!

We get sent to a "Building collapse", it ends up being part of a ceiling that fell off because of a water leak. Formerly the FD call taker would have been able to acertain the difference and sent the normal One-Ladder response for a water leak...now it gets the full initial collapse response until someone gets to the apt and discovers what is really happening!

To the Cops a CO alarm is a HAZ-MAT incident (it is how they doctor their numbers to claim to be more experienced at such incidents than the FDNY!) But to us there are all variety of Haz-mats that get different responses, but we don't have FDNY call takers speaking to the callers anymore....just dopey PD call takers which is barely a step above a work-fare program.

[E40FDNYL35]

The city has been using the same measure for response times. Hence they are not skewed. They changed their dispatch procedures which improved response times. The firefighters should be proud of the improved service.

Good Job FDNY!!!

WHAT????? WRONG!

[BryanLoader]

It has been docmented in unusual occurance reports and brought up by both unions. The Admin doesn't care as it is a project straight from the mayors office and they dont' care. They have already blamed an isloated misunderstanding for a screw up in the Bronx...they don't care.

The doctored times will be used in an attempt to close more companies...this past year the Mayor tried to close 16 companies....he lost....if he wins re-election, he will be comming back now with phony times to argue his position.

There are issues within issues and we dont' have the time and bandwidth to discuss all the aspects. As with most issues...the brief articles posted on here don't even begin to explore the real motivations and facts behind the rehtoric.

FTM-PTB

PS- For example our Dispatcher gets a ticket from the PD call taker that states HAZ-MAT and little else....so he sends out the HAZ-MAT response and we arrive to find what? A CO alarm battery going dead in a project!

We get sent to a "Building collapse", it ends up being part of a ceiling that fell off because of a water leak. Formerly the FD call taker would have been able to acertain the difference and sent the normal One-Ladder response for a water leak...now it gets the full initial collapse response until someone gets to the apt and discovers what is really happening!

To the Cops a CO alarm is a HAZ-MAT incident (it is how they doctor their numbers to claim to be more experienced at such incidents than the FDNY!) But to us there are all variety of Haz-mats that get different responses, but we don't have FDNY call takers speaking to the callers anymore....just dopey PD call takers which is barely a step above a work-fare program.

Sorry I didn't realise you had lost your FD dispatch and it is now in PD hands. Sounds like a Mickey Mouse way to do things. As I explained above, most of the cities here use a central 9-11 dispatch. There are no boxes here and alarms are routed through the respective alarm cos. A 9-11 dispatcher is pretty decently paid and regarded. It starts at about $41,000 with shift differential and OT after 40 hrs/week. I rather doubt that your Mayor or Council would be interested in how some little Canadian city does things, but I think possibly there are a lot of US cities operating in a similar fashion. Good luck in your fight, I think you'll need it and more.

[FFFRED]

Sorry I didn't realise you had lost your FD dispatch and it is now in PD hands. Sounds like a Mickey Mouse way to do things. As I explained above, most of the cities here use a central 9-11 dispatch. There are no boxes here and alarms are routed through the respective alarm cos. A 9-11 dispatcher is pretty decently paid and regarded. It starts at about $41,000 with shift differential and OT after 40 hrs/week. I rather doubt that your Mayor or Council would be interested in how some little Canadian city does things, but I think possibly there are a lot of US cities operating in a similar fashion. Good luck in your fight, I think you'll need it and more.

We didn't loose our dispatchers (yet). And yes it is turning into a Mickey Mouse Operation thanks to bureaucrats and spineless management.

They just don't speak to the caller unless they say the key words (I'm trapped" or something to that effect). So we lost the call taker positions on our dispatch side.

So the Fire alarm dispatchers (FADs) who are trained to gleen the information we need to properly respond and size up whatever the situation might be...don't speak to the callers. We must rely on the barely litterate PD call takers who type whatever they type and then our DD (Decision dispatcher) who decides how that run fits into the response matrix is now running blind with little more than a guess in many cases as to what response (Single engine, single ladder, full box...etc.) is appropriate.

And because they don't want to have to answer for what everyone knew (even the mayors office) would happen to response times when the PD call takers who aren't as skilled or trained in our needs would bungle the call taking process...they just removed that aspect from the calculations of response times (which already are very subjective and manipulated using very flexible criteria, such as throwing out data for whatever days of the year had inclimate weather...etc). So as to not only avoid showing an increase in response times due to their mismanagement...but actually show a year over year improvement! Only in NY.

Needless to say if a S&P500 company attempted to claim such improvements in sales, or revenue YoY using such parlor tricks every analyist and brokerage would expose them for fraudulent reporting. Politicians just look the otherway.

They are in the process of moving them into one central location in the middle of Downtown Brooklyn in lieu of the smarter option of de-centralized locations in each boro in the middle of city parks where there are no other exposures or hazards. We've ignored the lessons of 9-11-01 and the OEM command center in WTC 7 and doubled down on stupidity of placing all our assets in less secure and less numerous locations!

A consolidated dispatch isn't what we need...we need our dispatchers who are dedicated to our needs and our operations. Our system and platform is vastly different from that of the PD(prioritizes jobs) or even EMS(divies them up based on assumed seriousness)

And they should show the citizens and city council what the times would have been counting the call taking portion as part of the response time as had been done for decades.

FTM-PTB

[MarcusKspn]

So you still have the FD dispatch, and have a dedicated FD communication between your own guys and your own dispatch.

The problem is that nobody on the FD side has the opportunity to talk to the actual 911 caller anymore?

[FFFRED]

So you still have the FD dispatch, and have a dedicated FD communication between your own guys and your own dispatch.

The problem is that nobody on the FD side has the opportunity to talk to the actual 911 caller anymore?

As I stated in an earlier post...there are many inter-related issues here that all are at work and all progressing at different rates of completion or implementation.

Our dispatchers are being moved from the de-centralized Central offices in each Borough (was a strong feature in a post 9-11-01 world) to one location (and a proposed back up that isn't constructed as of yet.) Violating a number wise decisions taken a century ago to ensure fire alarm communications wouldn't be interupted (then by massive conflagarations, today by Islamic dirt bags with bombs)

The FD call takers only speak to the caller if they say the magic words..."I'm Trapped". Everything else is filtered through the poorly trained PD call takers who are focused on gathering information for Police matters. The stuff that is taken verbatim from the call taker and put on our tickets as I said is borderline laughable if lives weren't depending on its veracity and thoroughness.

Basicly what we have now embodies the old axiom, "Garbage in...garbage out!"

But in an attempt to cover up for a poor managerial idea, they eliminated the time a call taker takes to gather the needed information amd then actually had the audacity to claim YoY improvements in response times. (most of which was gained by eliminating the need to account for call taking times and a bit from sending out some alarms with insufficent and often inacurate information, endangering every person in the city)

You couldn't write a movie script this crazy...no one would beleive it.

FTM-PTB

PS- For example...Fire alarm disp get somewhere in the neighborhood of 160+ hours in training for call taking and information gathering specific to the needs of the FDNY.

The PD call takers got maybe 6 hours! Anyone else see a problem here?

[E40FDNYL35]

everyday there are problems....info is not passed right....units to wrong addresses in different boros...no more dispatch giving a heads up on a job....in a few years there will be no more FIRE dispatches....it will be the cities loss and the BROTHERS WILL SUFFER...again
GOD SAVE THE FDNY

[snowball]

everyday there are problems....info is not passed right....units to wrong addresses in different boros...no more dispatch giving a heads up on a jobs....in a few years there will be no more FIRE dispatches....it will be the cities loss and the BROTHERS WILL SUFFER...again
GOD SAVE THE FDNY

They will probably find a way to outsource it to India.

"Welcome to Dell...er I mean 911 dispatch..."

[BryanLoader]

We didn't loose our dispatchers (yet). And yes it is turning into a Mickey Mouse Operation thanks to bureaucrats and spineless management.

They just don't speak to the caller unless they say the key words (I'm trapped" or something to that effect). So we lost the call taker positions on our dispatch side.

So the Fire alarm dispatchers (FADs) who are trained to gleen the information we need to properly respond and size up whatever the situation might be...don't speak to the callers. We must rely on the barely litterate PD call takers who type whatever they type and then our DD (Decision dispatcher) who decides how that run fits into the response matrix is now running blind with little more than a guess in many cases as to what response (Single engine, single ladder, full box...etc.) is appropriate.

And because they don't want to have to answer for what everyone knew (even the mayors office) would happen to response times when the PD call takers who aren't as skilled or trained in our needs would bungle the call taking process...they just removed that aspect from the calculations of response times (which already are very subjective and manipulated using very flexible criteria, such as throwing out data for whatever days of the year had inclimate weather...etc). So as to not only avoid showing an increase in response times due to their mismanagement...but actually show a year over year improvement! Only in NY.

Needless to say if a S&P500 company attempted to claim such improvements in sales, or revenue YoY using such parlor tricks every analyist and brokerage would expose them for fraudulent reporting. Politicians just look the otherway.

They are in the process of moving them into one central location in the middle of Downtown Brooklyn in lieu of the smarter option of de-centralized locations in each boro in the middle of city parks where there are no other exposures or hazards. We've ignored the lessons of 9-11-01 and the OEM command center in WTC 7 and doubled down on stupidity of placing all our assets in less secure and less numerous locations!

A consolidated dispatch isn't what we need...we need our dispatchers who are dedicated to our needs and our operations. Our system and platform is vastly different from that of the PD(prioritizes jobs) or even EMS(divies them up based on assumed seriousness)

And they should show the citizens and city council what the times would have been counting the call taking portion as part of the response time as had been done for decades.

FTM-PTB

I can understand your frustration, but the problem seems to be more of untrained people taking the calls rather than something the FDNY can do something about. Most if not all major career depts here work under the single dispatch system, but the dispatch does have the option of switching the call direct to LE, FD, or EMS dispatch. They do it quite a lot more with police than with either of the others. The FD dispatch is not really dispatch but is called Fire Central and is the internal FD comms system. Its manned always 24x7 by trained FF and they know exactly what to ask. Its really not used that much because 9-11 ops are not allowed to operate unsupervised until after 9 months of combined training and supervision. They do a heck of a job and don't really receive the recognition they deserve. As far as 6 Hrs training, the work experience kids who come into the stations from high school receive 12 hrs before they are allowed on the floor.
Its sad to see that political wonks can screw thingsup so bad for basically no realistic purpose.

[ScareCrow57]

That "piece of paper" prints in about 5-8 seconds and is recieved simultaneous with the alarm in the firehouse.



Apparently you don't understand what I just wrote. The time they are telling you is now shorter is because they don't count the time it takes to gather the information from the caller...they haven't improved anything...they simply omited part of what was formerly counted among the response times. Understand?



A. We know any the time it takes us to arrive has actually remained the same and actually increased in many cases due to poor quality call takers not obtaining the info we need...thus necessitating the constant barage of 10-7's.

That time hasn't improved one bit, it is only using amature parlor tricks they can claim such gains. 13 seconds gain, comes at a price...and that price is critical CIDS info, correct and confirmed addresses and numerous unnecessary responses by companies responding to incorrect boxes when multiple calls are recieved.

B. They aren't customers, a customer is an ends to a means of making a profit (nothing wrong with that in the private sector) They are taxpayers, civilians and occasionaly victims.

The quality has decreased and the bureaucrats rely on simpletons like you to believe their smoke and mirrors

Scenario one. Call comes in, dispatch gather info, then send s FD.
Scenario two. Call comes in, send FD, then gather info.

Remember, the response time isn't what you think it is, it is what your customer thinks it is. And like it or not, the people you server are your customers. Call them tax payers, call them customers. They are the people who consume the service you provide.

The point is. The person who calls (Tax payer, customer, visitor) measures response time in how long it take you to get there from the time they dial 911. That is the true measure.

[ScareCrow57]

Sorry I didn't realise you had lost your FD dispatch and it is now in PD hands. Sounds like a Mickey Mouse way to do things. As I explained above, most of the cities here use a central 9-11 dispatch. There are no boxes here and alarms are routed through the respective alarm cos. A 9-11 dispatcher is pretty decently paid and regarded. It starts at about $41,000 with shift differential and OT after 40 hrs/week. I rather doubt that your Mayor or Council would be interested in how some little Canadian city does things, but I think possibly there are a lot of US cities operating in a similar fashion. Good luck in your fight, I think you'll need it and more.

I would say it is the right way to do things. A central dispatch center that dispatches all emergency services is optimal. This way, a call comes in. The central dispatch (if properly trained) determines which emergency services are needed and then sends them while continuing to get information.

[nameless]

a centralized comms center sounds like a good thing, until something happens to that building or the people inside of it. Then you have zero comms centers.


sounds like your call taking system is pretty screwed up.

[ChiefKN]

I would say it is the right way to do things. A central dispatch center that dispatches all emergency services is optimal. This way, a call comes in. The central dispatch (if properly trained) determines which emergency services are needed and then sends them while continuing to get information.

I continue to be amazed at how much of an expert you are on every topic.

Wow, amazing.

[GTRider245]

I continue to be amazed at how much of an expert you are on every topic.

Wow, amazing.

What do you expect? There is a central dispatch for the pizza delivery service he works for, so why wouldnt it work for emergency services? They get em there in 30 minutes every time!

[FFFRED]

Scenario one. Call comes in, dispatch gather info, then send s FD.
Scenario two. Call comes in, send FD, then gather info.

Remember, the response time isn't what you think it is, it is what your customer thinks it is. And like it or not, the people you server are your customers. Call them tax payers, call them customers. They are the people who consume the service you provide.

The point is. The person who calls (Tax payer, customer, visitor) measures response time in how long it take you to get there from the time they dial 911. That is the true measure.

And the time that the civilian is waiting for a Fire engine is the same if not longer....so what is your point.

You senarios have no relevance to our discussion. Neither represent reality on how it did work...or how it works today here.

FTM-PTB

[ScareCrow57]

a centralized comms center sounds like a good thing, until something happens to that building or the people inside of it. Then you have zero comms centers.


sounds like your call taking system is pretty screwed up.

This is true, that is why we have an agreement with neighboring counties should something happen. There is a disaster plan in place that covers contingency operations. Obviously, in a city the size of NY there would be multiple 911 call centers.

[ScareCrow57]

I continue to be amazed at how much of an expert you are on every topic.

Wow, amazing.

Not every topic, but this is simple. The overall goal is to improve response times. Response times are what the customer (or tax payer, or people we serve) perceive. What we perceive as a good response time is irrelevant.

[ScareCrow57]

And the time that the civilian is waiting for a Fire engine is the same if not longer....so what is your point.

You senarios have no relevance to our discussion. Neither represent reality on how it did work...or how it works today here.

FTM-PTB

I would highly doubt that, The sooner you get the apparatus, rigs, or someone enroute the shorter the wait and the quicker the response. I have been first on scene a couple of times, there is relief from the homeowner or victim as soon as someone shows up. Doesn't mean the fire goes out any faster, but the homeowner knows help is on the way.

[voyager9]

Not every topic, but this is simple. The overall goal is to improve response times. Response times are what the customer (or tax payer, or people we serve) perceive. What we perceive as a good response time is irrelevant.

You really need to go back and read the previous posts. This has very little to do with improving the Call-to-Arrival times. As was stated previously, if anything those have gotten longer.

This has everything to do with City management changing how things are calculated so they can proclaim an improvement to the press. If you're not the 1% of the population that uses 911 you're going to read that and think there has been an improvement of services.

From reading the previous posts, it sounds like the reality is much different. Information that is vital to the __FIRE__ companies is not being collected because the personnel who are talking to the caller are not trained on how to grok that information. Instead they have all-in-one call takers who are more focused on the PD side of things.

To summarize:
Call-to-Arrival time stays the same, or gets worse
Quality of Information from caller gets worse, ergo
Quality of service provided by the FD gets worse, ergo
Safety of Firefighters and citizens is in jeapordy
"Response Time", as defined in the press, gets better.

Nobody wins except the city management.