What is the process for dispatching a mission to a responder?
A mission is a request for routine or non-life-threatening assistance or help in an emergency. A mission might be a simple wellness check or it can be a sinking boat or heart attack. How a mission is dispatched has to do with how it is received and the availability of mission ready responders in an organizations.
When someone needs help at any time, by default, other users in the area receive an alert to the PubSafe app. To find people near those that need help, your approximate location is used even when the app is closed if you allow this function. If you disable it, your last know location may be used even though you are 1000 miles away. If you need help and your location is turned off for the PubSafe app, your location cannot be broadcast to others in the area. This enables users in either a Citizen or Responder Role to respond at their discretion. Users are not trained, certified, or vetted so those responding are responding in good faith. Sometimes just a friendly face makes a situation better. Other times, like that of a sinking boat, the nearest boat may be on scene an hour before the Coast Guard.
Organizations can utilize a special link provided to collect help requests and put them into the PubSafe portal. The organization can then dispatch its members in a mission-ready responder status to a help request. This can be done at any time and might be for something as simple as a family needing food or firewood. It can also be for a family stuck on a roof during a flood and emergency services are so busy they cannot respond. During disasters, help requests which are not dispatched in X minutes will be automatically put into the PubSafe queue so any available organization can dispatch within the prescribed time limit. The amount of time allowed to be in the queue and not dispatched will vary by request time, backlog, and overall situation as determined by PubSafe.
When a dispatcher sees a help request (HR) in the queue that matches their skill set and resources, they can forward the mission to a responder which is in a mission-ready status. The responder can then review the mission details and location and accept or decline the mission. Once accepted, the responder cannot get another mission until the current mission is cleared and they return to mission-ready status. If a mission is not updated by the responder, and the dispatcher is not communicating with the responder, the dispatcher or an organization supervisor can cancel the mission and assign to a different responder.
Once a mission is complete it is archived for future analytics.
Tags: Dispatching, Mission Status