The TRAA Communications Center is the ambulance call center for all emergency and non-emergency medical calls originating within Fort Wayne and for paramedic dual response services to Allen County. The primary service answering point for Police and Fire (the Consolidated Communications Partnership) receives the 911 call initially and forwards all medical calls to TRAA Communications Center controllers. TRAA’s Communications Center controllers handle approximately 34,000 calls for service per year. TRAA’s primary communications center is co-located with police and fire dispatch at the Rousseau Center in Fort Wayne. TRAA maintains a fully redundant communications center offsite in case of any emergency that would cause the primary center to close.
All TRAA Communications personnel are certified as Advanced Emergency Medical Dispatchers, Emergency Medical Technicians (Basic, Advanced, or Paramedic), and Healthcare Providers in CPR. All personnel maintain up to date knowledge and proficiency in Medical Priority Dispatch protocols, System Status Management in High Performance EMS Systems, and Communication Technology by attending a minimum of twenty-four hours of continuing education sessions annually.
Our patient care starts at the time of the 911 call. All personnel are trained and experienced in giving pre-arrival instructions to the caller for immediate care of life-threatening emergencies such as severe hemorrhage, childbirth, choking, and sudden cardiac arrest. Calls are processed according to the National Academy of Emergency Dispatch standards to ensure immediate patient care, crew safety, and the appropriate response to the emergency.
The International Academies of Emergency Dispatch (IAED) has recognized TRAA as an Accredited Center of Excellence since April of 2003. Accredited Centers of Excellence share a common goal of improving public care and maximizing the efficiency of 911 systems and represent the standard of excellence of EMS system dispatch. The International Academies of Emergency Dispatch has established a high standard of excellence for emergency dispatch, providing the tools to achieve this high standard at both the dispatcher level through certification, and at the communication center level through the accreditation program.
TRAA Communications is proud to be a part of an elite number of Accredited Centers of Excellence (ACE) across the U.S. and other countries that provide superior, up-to-date public care and efficient resource utilization to achieve maximum results in emergency situations.
TRAA paramedic ambulances are required to arrive on the scene to all life-threatening emergencies within the city of Fort Wayne in eight and a half minutes from the time of the call ninety percent of the time. TRAA has never in its history been non-compliant with this requirement. TRAA Communications personnel are all trained in System Status
Management in High Performance EMS Systems, and act as our command and control center in deployment of our paramedic ambulances to ensure our response time compliance is exceeded.
New technology of Marvlis (Mobile Area Routing and Vehicle Location Information System) was added to the system in January 2009 to further advance our deployment methodologies. This system allows the Communication Center to track every paramedic ambulance in “live time” throughout Allen County. It also recommends the three closest units to an emergency call based on the quickest time to the caller. For the paramedic ambulances, it provides the location, quickest routing, and call information for the emergency. This information is provided to the paramedic ambulance via a Mobile Data Terminal as soon as they are assigned to the call.