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Lee County Florida Medical Priority Dispatch Working Group

Lee County Florida Medical Priority Dispatch Working Group

Medical Priority Dispatch System and Lee County Florida

The Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS), originally developed by Dr. Jeff Clawson and now controlled by the National Academy of EMD, is the most advanced and comprehensive Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) system available. By virtue of its design, the MPDS is unparalleled in its ability to provide system administrators with complete information on EMD performance as it relates to compliance to the protocol.

In 2006, Lee County Public Safety and the Lee County Fire Chiefs' Association establish a MPDS working group to take the necessary steps to bring this practice to Lee County emergency responses. By incorporating MPDS into the daily emergency response, the goal is to to reduce the number of accidents caused by emergency response, better utilization of emergency resources and improved care once on scene through more accurate coding of the call at the front end (Clawson & Dernocoeur, 2002, p. 1.22). To accomplish this goal, the working group created three subcommittees to determine how to best incorporate the principles and practices into the existing Lee County emergency response structure:

  • MPDS Best Practices Sub-Committee
  • Response Matrix Sub-Committee
  • Benchmarking Sub-Committee


    • As of November 2006, the timeline for implementation for MPDS was:
    Fall 2006
    		Formation of the sub-committees
    Spring 2007
    		Finalization of Response Matrix
    Spring 2007
    		Approval of Response Matrix from all Stakeholders
    Summer 2007
    		Implementation of Response Matrix
    Fall 2007
    		Three Month Check-point
    Winter 2007
    		Six Month Check-point
    Winter 2007
    		Implementation Summary

    At the inception of EMS, as with many other new professions and industries that have emerged, there were few, if any, standards or position statements that established minimum performance expectations. Since that time, however, there has been an effort by many professional organizations and academic institutions to establish a body of information regarding acceptable EMD performance. These efforts were directed toward insuring that the public is provided with a minimum level of service that is both safe and effective. With these two directives in mind, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), a voluntary consensus building organization; the National Institute of Health; the National Association of Emergency Medical Services Physicians (NAEMSP), a professional association of EMS medical directors; and, the National Association of State Emergency Medical Services Directors (NASEMSD) have published standards and position statements that address EMD and EMS system design, safety and effectiveness.