Cooperative Efforts/Shared Services Feasibility Studies
One of the principal challenges emergency services organizations face is dealing with decreasing resources while, at the same time, trying to satisfy demands for new and/or expanded services. More and more, emergency agencies seek alternative strategies to address these and other issues. One option is developing or expanding cooperative relationships with other similar organizations. There are many options available to organizations that desire to pursue a more formal relationship with neighboring jurisdictions. These choices may…
Benchmarking for Improvement: ISO and ESCI Team Up
How do you demonstrate to the people and community you serve that you’re doing a good job? Do you have a clear, definitive method to show you provide quality service with the resources you have? What data points are appropriate for a true peer review and accurate comparison of your service delivery? Many fire departments have conducted benchmarking studies for years, but when you review the comparisons, the data points are often measured differently among…
Planning Approaches: Operational and Financial Planning
In the first post in this Planning Approaches series, we explained the importance of planning in your fire-EMS agency and talked about the difference between master planning and strategic planning. In our second Planning Approaches article, we looked more closely at standards of cover, cooperative efforts planning and tactical/operational planning. In this final entry, we briefly introduce the concepts of tactical/operational planning and financial planning. Tactical/Operational Planning This type of planning is focused primarily on emergency response. The elements…
