The Covid-19 pandemic saw a rise of teleworking. Many PSAPs went under partial or total “home-office” with the challenge of maintaining a similar quality of service when managing emergency communications remotely. In this presentation, a representative of Israel’s emergency medical services will share his experience of quickly organising remote call-taking in his organisation and how to address all the challenges that were faced such as reliability, privacy and security. Chaim Rafalowski, Disaster Management Coordinator, Magen David Adom (Emergency Medical Services of Israel)

1. Remote call-taking during the Covid-19
pandemic in Israel
Chaim Rafalowski
Magen David Adom Israel
haimr@mda.org.il

2. Objective and outline
Participants will be familiar with the response to COVID – 19 related calls in MDA’s
PSAP, and the remote call taking processes developed through the pandemic
• Introduction to MDA and MDA’s PSAP
• Phase 1 solution – as many call takers as possible
• Phase 2 solution – different sites
• Phase 3 solution – remote call taking
• Lessons observed

3. 3
AUXILIARY TO THE IDF AND CIVIL
DEFENSE DURING CONFLICT AND
LARGE SCALE EMERGENCIES
Disaster
Preparedness
National EMS
(Emergency Medical
Service)
National blood
service

4. 25,000
Volunteers
5,800 First
Responders
3,500
Paid Staff
~500
National
Service
Volunteers
17,200
Life
Guardians

5. 5
2 Helicopters,
1 boat
525
Motorcycles
,
>
200
Bicycles
,
80
Electrical
vehicles
1,273 ALS + BLS
units
units
8,000,000
Phone calls (2020)
>
782,000
Emergency
Dispatches
10 Regions
8 Reginal dispatches
1 National dispatch

6. 6
Emergency
Non-
Emergency
• Professional Call
takers
• Response in a few
seconds
• Voice, pictures and
live streaming
video
• Automatic
resource
allocation and
dispatch:
o First
responders
o Emergency
Vehicles

7. End of February 2020 – COVID 19????
• Uncertainty and fear in the public
• MoH structures (*5400) could not deal with the demand
(lack of infrastructure, personnel and training)
• Joint decision with MoH – “call 101” (with MoH personnel)
• Initial triage by trained call takers
• Activation of MDA contingency plan
• The result:
Simultaneous calls

8. Phase 1 solution – As many call takers
• As many call takers as possible (sometimes more than 1
per working station)
• Extensions at the same physical site (meeting rooms,
tent in the yard)

9. Phase 2 solution – different sites

10. Challenges
• “Strain test” of the system
• “Off site” physical stations (resilience, physical security, access rights)
• Hierarchy of call takers – “101 call takers”
– initial triage and emergency calls, "COVID 19” information officer
• Quality assurance
• Physical distancing / isolation
Remote call taking

11. Phase 2 – Remote call taking
• For call takers under “home quarantine”
• Light system
• Full call taking capacity (NG 112):
• Caller number recognition
• Localization of caller (SMS / WhatApp)
• Receiving images / video from the scene
• Making calls
• Requirements (call taker side):
• Broad band stable connectivity
• Quite environment
• Availability for 4 hours shift
• On line ZOOM call (dedicated cellular) – briefing, real time support

12. Remote call taking - challenges
• Data protection and cyber security
• Resilience of the connectivity
• Speed of data transfer
• New working set up – technical and working environment
• Assuring quality of service

13. Remote call taking – what have we
learned
• It is doable !
• Gives MDA a very important flexibility in business continuity planning
• Allows to increase capacities in a short time
• Requires management commitment
• Investment in infrastructure and equipment is needed
• Solves issues for parents with young children
• Cannot be achieved without the staff commitment

14. haimr@mda.org.il