Dispatch Services - Jackson Med-Link

Keeping up with advances in EMS, Medical Center EMS Dispatch (Jackson Med-Link) has been designated by the State of Tennessee Department of Health, Division of Emergency Medical Services, as the Telecommunications Resource Coordination Center for West Tennessee. This designation was effective March 16, 1992 and means that the Dispatch Center is the communication link for 17 counties in West Tennessee. In the event of a disaster, the Dispatch Center in Jackson would coordinate the response of emergency services in the affected areas. Medical Center EMS responds to over 1,500 calls per month in Madison and Chester counties. Med-Link is staffed 24 hours per day, seven days per week by trained emergency medical dispatchers who have completed a 54-hour dispatch training course at Jackson State Community College, along with 16 hours of clinical practice with an experienced dispatcher. The state certifies our personnel as Emergency Medical Dispatchers.

In the past when an emergency call was received, little if any information was given to the caller about what he could do to help the patient until the ambulance arrived. Today, dispatchers use a special nationally-distributed computer program to provide pre-arrival instructions. Using the program, dispatchers can direct callers through life-saving procedures such as bleeding control, CPR, Heimlich Maneuver and childbirth prior to the arrival of ambulance personnel. This special program was provided through donations to a special fund administered by the Jackson-Madison County Health Care Foundation Fund.

In one instance, dispatchers talked the parents of a choking child through the procedure to release the obstruction before the ambulance arrive. The baby's cry was the best sound the dispatchers heard all day!