MOSES LAKE - A committee with Grant County's 9-1-1 center will review how long it took operators to dispatch medical calls over about a year.

The study will be done to determine if a new dispatch computer program purchased last July is lengthening the amount of time dispatchers are on the phones with callers.

Multi Agency Communications Center Director Mary Allen said Wednesday there haven't been any problems with the calls.

But the new program resulted in the perception among some people that medical calls may take longer, she said.

She was apparently referring to issues raised over dispatch time by Moses Lake Fire Chief Tom Taylor at a recent 9-1-1 center board meeting.

Taylor said the center's committee of area fire department representatives will study the dispatching time and see what can be done to streamline it.

He also said the center has a good system and the committee just wants to make it better.

After the meeting, Taylor said the committee won't be able to determine if there's a delay in dispatching until they see the numbers.

"We don't know if there's a delay," he said. "We want to see if there is."

He said the numbers may be reviewed at the committee's next meeting in July.

The planned review of call times is part of the center's quality assurance process of examining procedures, Taylor said.

But he said dispatchers have a "lot they have to go through," with the series of questions they are required to ask callers.

Since July 2007, dispatchers have used a computerized version of a system called ProQueA to dispatch medical calls, which provides a list of emergency questions for dispatchers on computer.

The board approved the $56,910 purchase of ProQueA for fire and law emergencies at its May 8 meeting.

Before ProQueA was implemented for medical calls last July, MACC dispatchers used a flip-card book on their desks to look up different information for appropriate responses on the cards, Allen said.

Grant County Chief Deputy John Turley said the desktop card system was implemented for law enforcement a few years ago. He said some people working in law enforcement voiced an opinion that it wouldn't work for them.

Turley claimed there was between a two-minute to 10-minute delay before law enforcement is activated to a scene.

He said it would be more helpful to have dispatch radio additional information to the officers as they're driving to an incident instead of having a delayed response.

"We've received a number of complaints at the sheriff's office," he said. "They say, 'we want a cop here and we want one now.'"

He claimed dispatchers get hung up on because of the lengthy questions.

ProQueA vendor Shawn Johnson said there's "not a chance" the automated system is slower than the previous desktop card system, but there is a learning curve anytime a new system is implemented.

The software requires dispatchers to follow a list of questions in order to progress to the next step. He claimed the automated system saves time and is more accurate.

Johnson cited studies that showed if dispatchers are told to just get what's important from callers, dispatchers either waste time by pausing or asking unpertinent questions.

With a card system, it's possible for a hurried and stressed dispatcher to skip questions, he said. He added that he wasn't saying that MACC's dispatchers cheated.

The program's content is developed by the National Academies of Emergency Dispatch and is modified regularly upon customers' suggestions, he said.

The group is described as "a non-profit standard-setting organization promoting safe and effective emergency dispatch services worldwide," according to its Web site.

The system is not experimental nor a new program, he said.

Worldwide, Johnson's employer has about 3,000 clients and about 1,000 clients are now using the software, he said.

"It's not by any means they're trying something new, they're bringing themselves up to the national standard," Johnson said.

Jackie Jones, operations manager at RiverComm dispatch in Wenatchee, said her center's employees will start training in September to use the ProQueA system.

She said the center wouldn't be converting to the new system if it was slower than their current system.

A computerized quality assurance program can be used with the system to generate statistics on what steps dispatchers are following.

One statistic can show if dispatchers ask certain questions, she added.