Heather Darata
Research starts with a question. These questions come when looking at how to best serve our communities, adapt to new technology, abide by new laws, create healthy environments for our dispatchers, and best allocate responders.
Because of these questions, research studies are a big step in finding out answers to what’s working and what can be improved in the emergency dispatch profession. The facts and evidence from these studies hold the key to understanding challenges and unlocking innovation in the profession.
But we understand that research articles can also be intimidating and challenging to decipher unless you’ve brushed up on your lingo. Forgot all of that.
The Academy has your back. Say hello to new ways to help you stay informed about what the Academy knows and is continuing to discover.
First, let’s start with our new Research Briefs. Each is a single piece of paper with information on both sides. That’s it. We’ve boiled down the current research about a single topic and included what’s most relevant. We’ve also included a section about how this research has been put into practice at an actual dispatch center for real application.
When looking at the Research Brief, you’ll notice that the question being studied and its answer are included at the top of the brief. The takeaway message is illustrated in the pull quote and infographic on the left for easy readability.
Our audience for these Research Briefs is primarily emergency dispatchers. But we know that everyone in the communication center can benefit from browsing them. With that said, we do have a Research Brief in the works for those involved in quality assurance and training.
The Research Briefs can be found in the right column on aedrjournal.org. Don’t worry that these will be hard to decipher. We promise that they won’t be. Plus, you can get CDE credit by taking the quiz for each brief on the College of Emergency Dispatch (learn.emergencydispatch.org). There are two briefs with their associated CDE quizzes already translated into German and one in French and Italian.
But it’s not just the roll out of the Research Briefs that we’re excited about. With over 20 episodes of our Dispatch in Depth podcast already available on the AEDR website, you can imagine the diversity of topics and guests available for your listening pleasure. The podcasts offer accessible information about the emergency dispatch profession—sometimes in 30 minutes or less. They come out every two weeks, so subscribe to keep them coming your way by visiting aedrjournal.org/subscribe-to-podcast/.
Visit the College of Emergency Dispatch to take a quiz for each podcast listened to in order to earn sought-after CDE credit.
Want an easier way to stay in the loop on everything the IAED™ is doing with research? Sign up to receive our weekly newsletter by visiting the AEDR website and look for the subscribe button on the top right. Want to know when the next podcast is being released? Want to participate in surveys? Curious what the next Research Brief covers? Subscribe to the newsletter and be in the know.
To dip your toes in the water, check out the research posters (aedrjournal.org/posters) as a way to visually find out more about topics ranging from MPDS® Protocol 26 and Protocol 10 to comparative location testing, superusers and giving dispatchers “the rest of the story.”
Also visit our frequently asked question section (aedrjournal.org/learn) to find out how to understand a research paper, the difference between quantitative and qualitative research, and what to know about figures and tables.
If you want to get involved in doing research, send an email to ResearchHelpDesk@emergencydipatch.org and get the ball rolling.
