Research Poster Winners Announced At NAVIGATOR

Audrey Fraizer

Audrey Fraizer

NAVIGATOR

Audrey Fraizer

Two Best Poster awards at NAVIGATOR 2019 rocketed the “zero to sixty” approach to conducting research taught during a pre-conference workshop. The winning posters, which had their beginnings at the 2018 Research Workshop, are:

“Identifying a Working Structure Fire Using a Standardized Dispatch Protocol System.” Primary author Terry Purvis is from Williamson County Emergency Communications in Georgetown, Texas (USA), and the co-authors are Madeline Marks and Stewart McGehee.

“Evaluating the Effect of Proper Use of ‘Tell Me Exactly What Happened’ Case Entry Question on Chief Complaint Selection and Information Gathering at Emergency Police Dispatch.” Primary author Steve Zenes is from Morris County Department of Law & Public Safety in Morristown, New Jersey (USA), and the co-author is Nancy Roller.

The two-day workshop provides a jump-start to research, with experts explaining how to ask good (and interesting) research questions, how to get approval for your study, how to collect data, and how to share your findings with the world. Participants walk away with something to show for it: a study already underway.

Kate Dotson, Dispatch Supervisor, Snohomish County 911, Everett, Washington (USA), found her way into research when her interest in helping emergency dispatchers cope with stress put her in charge of an emotional health project.

“It was the beginning,” she said. “I kept hearing about how the stress was affecting dispatchers at our center and wanted to do something that made emotional health part of our center’s culture.”

Dotson is now leading a research team organized at the pre-conference workshop that studies causes of stress specific to the emergency dispatch profession.

Go to aedrjournal.org/posters/ for more information and abstracts of past poster submissions. All posters on display at NAVIGATOR 2019 will be posted to the AEDR.