A system and method assists an emergency medical dispatcher in responding toemergency calls. A computer implemented emergency medical dispatch protocolincludes interrogatories for a dispatcher to ask a caller to generate an appropriateresponse. A diagnostic tool is provided to determine a vital sign of a patientbased on a timer and caller relayed information about the patient. An interventiontool is provided to administer assistance and determine a compression rate basedon a timer and caller relayed information.