BATON ROUGE - In December 2022, East Baton Rouge Emergency Medical Services rolled out a brand new dispatch system that works closely with artificial intelligence. 

The Priority Dispatch System (PDSTM) includes ProQA software, continual quality improvement (QI) benchmarks and training. Use of this system will allow EMS emergency dispatchers to assess the quality of the care they provide their communities, allowing them to make positive adjustments to training and staff in response to these assessments.

"We're getting to homes more efficiently, getting there quicker," said Jeremy Torres with EMS. "This system helps treat symptoms immediately in a moment of crisis."

The system has a built in questionnaire that helps pinpoint what exactly the patient could be experiencing. 

"Those questions that you're answering is actually helping our responders to know how to respond with what apparatuses to send to your home with what you need. All of the information that you're answering is going directly to the units that the responders are in heading to your house. So, they're getting real time information on you or your loved ones emergency. This helps give them a good picture of what exactly is going on with the patient when they arrive," Torres said.

This system is helping cut the response time down.

"We're seeing our highest acuity calls, what you would consider 'the worst emergencies,' somewhere in the range of about 45 seconds of being dispatched. We're talking less than a minute, we have someone on the way to your house," Torres said..

Emergency dispatchers can provide lifesaving and safety instructions to callers and patients before responders arrive. For example, by using the MPDS, the emergency dispatcher can instruct a caller on performing CPR or delivering a baby.