Watch a Video Tutorial
AngelTrack is easy to use, and you'll pick up the basics in no time... but you should read this guide anyway, because it shows how to take advantage of AngelTrack's features in order to shorten your telephone and radio conversations. Nurses and other callers will appreciate how quickly you book their requests, and you will spend less time tying up your radio system talking to crews.
To book a scheduled transport, follow this script, working your way down until you reach the end:
Step 1 |
All Callers | |
|---|---|---|
|
Dispatch: Hello, thank you for calling Acme EMS, how can I help? |
||
Step 2 |
Origin Facility Already Exists | Origin Facility Not Yet Known |
|
After typing "Central" into the Origin Name field, "Central Resthome" appears in the popup list of close matches. |
After typing "Central" into the Origin Name field, a few similar names appeared in the popup list of close matches. |
|
Step 3 |
All Callers | |
|
If you use barcode scanning to locate patient records while on-scene, then leave the patient name and DOB fields blank. And do not click the button to create a new (blank) patient record; the PCR will do that automatically when the crew scans the patient's barcode or driver's license. Skip the rest of this step and also skip step 4. Otherwise, make a concerted effort to locate an existing patient record.
If the patient already has a record, but you fail to locate it, then a duplicate record will be created... which will then have to be merged later. |
||
Step 4 |
Patient Record Already Exists | Patient Has No Record Yet |
|
Dispatch: Is that Angela Smith, 65-year old white female? |
Double-check that you correctly typed the last name, first name, and date of birth |
|
Step 5 |
All Callers | |
|
Dispatch: Where would you like to send her? |
||
Step 6 |
All Callers | |
|
Dispatch: What day is her appointment? |
||
Step 7 |
All Callers | |
|
As succinctly as possible, confirm all critical details: |
||
That's it.
If your call will not activate until later, then you will be returned to the Dispatch board... whereas if your call activates immediately, then you will be automatically forwarded to the Dispatch Assign page to choose a shift to run the call.
(If you aren't yet sure what a shift is, read the Shifts guide.)
Crew: Medic3 calling on shift at West station for 24 hours.
Dispatch: Roger that Medic3, what is your crew composition?
Visit the Shifts page and click the plus signto create a new shift. Select the 'West' station, select 24 hours, and select Medic3 from the vehicles list.
Crew: Medic3 crew is Roger Smith and Javier Garcia.
Select the crew members from the list of clocked-in employees at the West station.
If either crew member has forgotten to clock in, remind them now.
Verify that AngelTrack shows the expected crew qualification level, indicating that both crew members' certificates are in order.
Dispatch: Roger and Javier on Medic3 for 24 hours, roger that. Odometer reading and fuel level?
Crew: Medic3 odometer reading is 93370.1, fuel level is one half.
Check the odometer reading box to verify that the crew's reported odometer reading is reasonably close to the odometer reading last reported for their vehicle. If it isn't, ask the crew to verify and re-read their odometer reading. Input the odometer reading and the vehicle's current fuel level.
Dispatch: Roger that, 93370.1, half a tank.
If there is an appropriate checklist configured for this type of crew and vehicle, pull down the Checklist list and select it.
Click "Save".
If the crew members have configured their messaging settings, they will receive an email or SMS message confirming the start of their shift, including vehicle, posting station, and expected length.
From the dispatch board, click the "[Unassigned]" link for the desired dispatch. This opens the Dispatch Assignment page.
Find the desired crew unit in the list of available units, and click the associated "Now" button. (The "Later" button is for pre-assigning a dispatch that will
Dispatch: Medic3, you have a three o'clock pickup at Shady Acres Nursing Home, call is on your iPad.
Crew: Roger that.
When the crew eventually finishes, and makes the last press of their progress button, the dispatch's progress indicator on the dispatch board turns yellow to get your attention.
The Dispatch Assignment page is loaded with useful information. It looks like this:
If the crew members have configured their messaging settings, they will receive an email or SMS message containing the basic dispatch information, including addresses and times.
The "Now" button assigns the dispatch to the selected shift, and activates the dispatch if it is not already active. The crew is therefore expected to run the call immediately.
The "Later" button is only available for dispatches that have not yet activated. Clicking "Later" assigns the dispatch to the selected shift, but does not activate the dispatch. The dispatch will remain in the schedule, inactive, but already assigned. This is called "preassignment". The crew will see the new dispatch in their "Upcoming dispatches" grid in their Crew home page.
If you make a "Later" assignment, you always have the option to "Now" it afterward. For example, suppose you are expecting a return trip but you don't know exactly when the patient will be ready. You already know which shift will take the trip, so you click "Later" to preassign the call to them. The crew therefore knows where their next pickup will be. Half an hour later the patient calls to say she is ready to leave. You will then reassign the dispatch to the same unit, clicking "Now" to activate the call. (You could accomplish the same thing by editing the dispatch and changing its activation time to "Now".)
The dispatch board will show a graphical representation of the crew's progress, like this:
| Leg | Crew location | Status graphic |
|---|---|---|
| Not rolling |  |
|
| Enroute | Crew location unknown |  |
| Less than 1/3rd of the way there |  |
|
| Between 1/3rd and 2/3rds of the way there |  |
|
| More than 2/3rds of the way there |  |
|
| On scene |  |
|
| Transporting | Crew location unknown |  |
| Less than 1/3rd of the way there |  |
|
| Between 1/3rd and 2/3rds of the way there |  |
|
| More than 2/3rds of the way there |  |
|
| At destination |  |
|
| Back in service |  |
To decide where a crew is located, AngelTrack tries its best to reconcile the stream of position data arriving from the vehicle and from all of the crew members on-board. Unfortunately, crew members sometimes leave themselves logged-in on multiple devices, and if some of those devices are back at the station, or are aboard the wrong vehicle, then the crew location estimates will be perturbed. In order to reduce this perturbance, AngelTrack favors vehicle GPS beacon pings over crew member pings.
The crew progress display is coarse-grained (0/3rds, 1/3rd, 2/3rds) because traffic conditions make crew progress non-linear; for example, a crew might drive the first 5 miles at speed, then spend the last half-mile crawling through stop-signs or a traffic jam. As such, AngelTrack shows only a very rough estimate of how far along the crew is in their drive.
"Crew location unknown" occurs when either of the following are true:
Crew: Medic3 is clear of call, back in service.
Find Medic3's call on the dispatch board; the progress indicator should be yellow, indicating the crew has pressed their progress button a final time to indicate they are back in service.
If the progress indicator is not yellow yet, ask the crew to press their progress button one final time, and wait for them to do so.
Click the green check-mark button to close the dispatch.
Dispatch: Roger that Medic3, you are clear to return to station.
Be sure you understand the other ways of closing a dispatch, for use when things do not go as planned. The dispatch board's shortcut buttons provide three different ways of closing a dispatch, depending on what occurred in the field . . .
If you wish to allow your crews to close out their own calls, you can activatate AngelTrack's Unattended Dispatch Mode.
Unattended dispatch mode is intended for use at night, where the dispatcher is working from home and does not need to be re-woken by the crew upon completion of a dispatch. However, some EMS companies use it during the day, trusting their crews to promptly return to service after each transport.
This restriction was a conscious design decision in AngelTrack.
Because so much happens to a dispatch in postprocess -- report completion, QA, insurance review, billing, invoicing -- it was decided that re-opened dispatches would be too disruptive. It is better if every participant in the system can operate on the core assumption that "Once it's closed, it stays closed".
You can, at least, visit Dispatch Followup and change the execution status of a closed call, from "cancelled" to "completed" to "delegated"... but even that change has serious billing implications, so make sure you understand the impact before doing so.
You can also cancel and then dupe a closed dispatch, if you absolutely must re-run it. The original dispatch will thereafter reflect its own history up to the point of cancellation, and then the new dispatch will start from there.
The dispatch board contains several buttons that perform common tasks that would normally require a visit to the Dispatch Edit, Dispatch Followup, and Dispatch Assignment pages. Here is a part of the dispatch board showing the shortcut buttons:
Back up one leg
This button moves the crew back one leg, to the previous step, by deleting the date/time that was recorded for the current step. In other words, if the crew accidentally presses their progress button to record themselves "On scene" at 17:48, moving them back one leg deletes the "On scene at 17:48" timestamp, which means the next newest timestamp is now "Enroute 17:15".
Dispatchers use this button when a crew accidentally presses their progress button to prematurely advance their progress.
Unassign
This button duplicates the behavior of the "Unassign" button on the Dispatch Assignment page. The assigned shift or affiliate is removed, and the dispatch re-enters the "Unassigned Dispatches" queue.
Close dispatch as 'Complete, as ordered'
This button appears when the crew has made their final progress button press, indicating they are back in service. Pressing this button closes the dispatch, marking it "Complete, as ordered". The dispatch then disappears from the dispatch board, enters postprocess, and appears in the Closed Dispatches page instead. (The same can be accomplished by visiting the Dispatch Followup page.)
Close dispatch as 'Complete, best effort'
This button, when yellow, closes the dispatch as 'Complete, best effort'. This option is available once the crew has arrived on-scene. (The alternative is to unassign the dispatch from the crew and then cancel it.) A dispatch closed as "Complete, best effort" will pass through reporting, QA, and Billing normally... albeit flagged as "best effort" to indicate that the original orders could not be followed.
NOTE: If the dispatch being closed is an outbound call with a return trip, but transport did not occur on the outbound trip, then the return trip will automatically be cancelled. If you do not wish this to happen, then use the Dispatch Followup page to close the dispatch (instead of the shortcut button) and then uncheck the relevant checkbox.
Forward one leg
This button is the opposite of "Back up one leg"; it records a timestamp for the crew's arrival at the next leg. For example, if the crew's newest timestamp is "Transporting at 16:15", and then this button is pressed 30 minutes later, the button records a new timestamp of "At destiantion at 16:45".
Dispatchers use this button when a crew does not have access to a mobile device -- or a sufficient wireless signal -- with which to press their progress button. This button permits the dispatcher to do so on behalf of the crew, but this should be avoided wherever possible, because the crew's progress button records their GPS position, whereas the dispatcher's progress button does not.
Add note
This button pops up a small window with which to append a note to the dispatch's "Dispatch notes" field. Recall that any line of text that begins with an exclamation point (!) will appear in the eventual invoice; use it to make clarifications that the customer may need to understand his bill.
When the "Add note" icon changes to show the presence of a note, you can hover your mouse over it to read it.
The Live Map feature is a powerful technology for visualizing the day's call schedule. It can display the traffic routing for any specific dispatch, or it can show the whole dispatch board. You can perform all your dispatching right in the map, instead of the traditional dispatch boards.
To learn more, read the Live Map Guide.
Any shift can be ended at any time, regardless of how long it was initially expected to last.
If the shift still has active dispatches assigned, you can either:
Use the following radio procedure to end a shift... in this example, the crew already knows they are getting off, and so are the ones who initiate the dialog:
Crew: Medic3 is calling off shift.
Dispatch: Medic 3, roger that. I am standing by for the replacement crew to call on shift.
Visit the Shifts page find the relevant shift, and click the "End" button. The End Shift page opens.
Dispatch: Odometer and fuel level?
Crew: Medic3 odometer is 93455.4, fuel level is three quarters.
Sanity-check the odometer reading against the latest stored reading shown in the odometer field. If the numbers are wildly mismatched, ask the crew for confirmation.
Input the odometer reading into the odometer field.
Sanity-check the fuel level against the fuel level that AngelTrack thinks is in the tank. If the crew reports a level much higher than AngelTrack expects, remind the crew that they may have forgotten to record their fuel purchase.
Input the correct fuel level.
Dispatch: Medic3, I have you off shift, you are clear to clock out.
Crew: Roger that, good night.
Collecting an odometer reading and fuel level is optional, but the data is used to assist all dispatchers by estimating the fuel levels remaining on all vehicles. When a dispatcher is assigning a dispatch, these estimated levels are shown to assist in choosing a unit to handle the call:
The odometer readings are also used to calculate reports such as Mileage Efficiency and Vehicle Maintenance Status, but your company may choose to ignore odometer readings at shift change; in such case, simply don't type one in when AngelTrack asks.
When you are comfortable with all of the aforementioned tasks, move on to the Emergent Dispatch guide.