The current personnel shortages in the emergency services don’t spare public safety answering points (PSAPs) and call centers – telecommunicators like call-takers and dispatchers are in short supply too. A 2023 survey by the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch revealed an average vacancy rate of around 25% in U.S. 911 centers from 2019–2022,¹ and another a year later by the National Emergency Number Association (NENA) found 75% of emergency communications centers lacked the funds to expand their workforce.² Even worse, in NENA’s findings: Of centers with the means to hire, 82% still had trouble filling vacancies, and half of trainees didn’t complete their probationary periods.

Those shortfalls can mean longer wait times for 911 callers and delays in getting units dispatched, not to mention tolls on dispatchers like stress, overtime and burnout. Those all reduce a system’s resilience and are thus important for call centers to address.

Increasingly, technology can help.

“As far as requests for functionality, we get a lot around automation and reducing tasks for users,” said Michael Oldach, a product manager with ZOLL, a prominent provider of software and devices for EMS and hospital personnel. “I think it’s an evolving mindset, and every customer is in a different place with how much automation they expect. If you’re early in that evolution, you still have a lot of manual work for the dispatcher. As an agency matures, it looks for systems to improve efficiency and remove as much of the manual work for dispatchers as possible. So that’s where we’re going.”