Mission Critical Partners Helps Florida PSAP Take Steps to Resolve a 911 Staffing Crisis

CHALLENGE

It has never been more challenging to be a public safety answering point (PSAP) official. Many are dealing with funding and budgetary shortfalls, while others are left wondering how they will implement Next Generation 911 (NG911) technology. These challenges alone are enough to keep PSAP officials up at night. However, staffing, which has historically been an issue for the 911 community, is arguably the most worrisome challenge facing the 911 community today.

MCP's Top Eight Public Safety Predictions for 2019

What trends are expected to disrupt the public safety sector in 2019?

For 911 and emergency response organizations, it has never been more critical to stay ahead of the curve. In this post, Mission Critical Partners' (MCP) subject-matter experts offer their take on the advancements that will have the greatest impact on public safety’s transformation this year.

1. 5G Will Significantly Expand, Opening the Door for Transformative Capabilities that are Limited Today by Wireless Bandwidth.

Dave Sehnert, Director of Innovation and Integration (Twitter: @NG911Consultant)

“5G is expected to expand in 2019 beyond its current limited deployment, and the first wave of smartphones for 5G networks also is expected this year. 5G technology offers speeds that are 10–20 times faster than 4G LTE, and latency is reduced to a few milliseconds. 5G’s impact extends to public safety and other fields that increasingly rely on high-speed connections. Last year, one wireless carrier announced the creation of a 5G First Responder Lab that will serve as an incubator and testing ground for innovative technologies that use 5G and can be deployed for public safety use cases. With 5G, public safety communications finally will benefit from a full spectrum of new and increasingly prevalent technologies, such as sensors, wearables, smartphones, smart buildings, facial-recognition systems and drones, to name a few. The integration of data from these applications into the emergency response ecosystem will create increased situational awareness, reduced response times, and ultimately, the potential for more lives saved.”

Pilot Project Offers Insight into Using Social Media Data for Emergency Response

In a recent post, MCP Insights chatted with Dr. Andrea Tapia, associate professor of information sciences and technology at Pennsylvania State University (PSU) in State College, about the impact social media is beginning to have on the 911 community. This post explores a pilot project that concluded in August 2018 at the Charleston County (S.C.) Consolidated 911 Center that explored the use of social media data in emergency management and response. MCP, RapidSOS and RapidDeploy also participated in the pilot project.

Collaborators from PSU’s College of Information Sciences’ 3C Informatics: Crisis, Community and Civic Informatics, led by Dr. Tapia—who is working with MCP for the next year as she takes a sabbatical from her duties at Penn State—explored how access to social media data could impact 911 operations, specifically by improving situational awareness during emergencies.

You can hear from all pilot program participants, including the Director of the Charleston County Consolidated 911 Center, during MCP's panel discussion on social media and 911 on Thursday, December 13, 2018 at 12:00 PM ET. Register here.

[Interview] The Impact Social Media is Having on the Public Safety Community

As people change how they communicate, 911 must change too.

Recently MCP Insights chatted with Dr. Andrea Tapia, associate professor of information sciences and technology at Pennsylvania State University in State College, about the impact social media is beginning to have on the 911 community.

Dr. Tapia is working with Mission Critical Partners for the next year, as she takes a sabbatical from her duties at Penn State, to help public safety agencies leverage the opportunities that social media interactions provide to enhance emergency response.

Insights: Why is social media becoming more important to the emergency response community?

Tapia: Society has changed the way it communicates. Most of society is not using the telephone as it has in the past. This isn’t true of only the younger generations—even older people are changing. My 75-year-old father is texting now rather than making phone calls, mostly because his children and grandchildren insist that he do so. The middle and younger generations are changing because they want to, while the older generations are changing because they must. Most of society—even the reluctant—are changing.

Stop Thinking About 'Staffing 911.' Start Thinking About Workforce Optimization.

It has never been more challenging to be a PSAP official.

Longer-term considerations include implementing Next Generation 911 (NG911) technology and integrating the nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN)—being built under the auspices of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet)—into the 911 center’s operations. These are no small tasks.

The one short-term topic that is on everyone’s mind is staffing. It is not something merely to consider—it is the thing under the bed, the thing that keeps you awake—night after night after night. Right now, the 911 community is dealing with an acute 911 staffing shortage. In many cases PSAPs are struggling to keep up with the volume of emergency calls they receive, Obviously, this is placing lives at greater risk, which is a very big problem.

Trends in Computer Aided Dispatch Systems for 911 Centers

In emergency communications, the computer-aided dispatch system, or CAD, functions as the informational hub of the public safety answering point (PSAP). As technology continues to impact everything we do as consumers – from purchasing of goods, to our communications with friends, to navigating us from point A to point B – public safety must modernize its systems to meet communities’ demands for faster and improved emergency response.

Over the years, driven by advancements in consumer technology, CAD systems have undergone their own evolution. For many years, CAD systems were specific to a single agency. Today, CAD systems have evolved into multi-agency, unified platforms that enable greater flexibility and facilitate information sharing, not just between the PSAP and field personnel, but also between departments and neighboring jurisdictions.

How to Protect Your Siren System from Hackers

Emergency siren systems respond in various ways based on the type of activation tone that is transmitted. The tones correspond to the type of event that has occurred. Sometimes they will sound in a continuous burst for a predetermined length of time, other times they will sound in a series of short bursts, and for the most severe events they might emit prerecorded audio that contains critical instructions, for instance evacuation orders in the event of a wildfire.

In April 2017, someone hacked into the emergency weather siren system operated by the city of Dallas. The sirens are intended to warn citizens of weather events so serious that they should take immediate cover. Most of the time the sirens are used to warn of tornadoes, which are quite common in the region in the spring. On this night, the hacker reportedly unleashed all 156 sirens in the system simultaneously. Some media reports indicated that they blared for about 90 minutes, while others indicated that they sounded more than a dozen times for 90-second intervals. Regardless, the hack spawned quite a bit of panic. It also generated a lot of questions from government officials, the media and citizens.

Last month, sirens went off in Genesee County, Michigan, without any emergency to justify turning them on. Reportedly, this was the third time the sirens were activated in a month without apparent cause, and county public safety officials believe that the system was hacked each time.

Integrating IPAWS Into Your Operations

The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) is a powerful federal resource that can be used by state, local, tribal, and territorial authorities to protect the public. As with any powerful tool, IPAWS is a multiplier when used properly. However, we all have heard stories concerning improper use of IPAWS that resulted in embarrassment for public safety officials and unease within the community. Fortunately, there are a few easy steps you can take to keep this from happening to your agency.

What is IPAWS?

The ability to broadcast emergency alerts to the public has been in place in one form or another for nearly seven decades. In August 1951, the Control of Electronic Radiation (CONELRAD) system was launched; it leveraged AM radio frequencies to send out alerts. A dozen years later the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS), which utilized television frequencies, was born; its original purpose was to enable the president to speak directly to the American public in times of crisis, such as the “who is going to blink first?” nuclear showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union that occurred a year earlier.

The Difference Between Change Management and Change Leadership In Public Safety Communications

Profound changes are coming to the public safety sector, particularly to 911 centers. Next Generation 911 systems and the nationwide public safety broadband network—which is being implemented by the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet)—will generate a tremendous amount of new, actionable data in real-time that dramatically will enhance situational awareness, in turn improving emergency response by leaps and bounds. In time, even more usable information generated by the billions of data-collection sensors already in place—whose numbers will reach into the trillions in the not-too-distant future—will be leveraged by 911 centers, which will become the center of the information universe, at least as it pertains to public safety.

D.C. Develops an Interesting Approach to Triaging Low-Acuity 911 Calls

An epidemic is afflicting the entire United States. It involves low-acuity emergency calls to 911 call centers that are overburdening the emergency medical services (EMS) provided by municipal governments. This burden is even extending to the emergency rooms (ERs) to which these patients are transported. The result is that emergency medical technicians (EMTs) increasingly are suffering from stress and morale issues, ambulances are falling into disrepair, and ERs are struggling to keep up with the demand.

Low-acuity calls are those that do not qualify as Basic Life Support (BLS) or Advanced Life Support (ALS) incidents, such as sprains, the flu, a cut requiring stitches, stomach cramps and the like. The problem is that when someone dials 911, the municipality is obligated to dispatch an ambulance/EMT/paramedic to the incident to assess the patient’s condition and, given some patient bill of rights, transport the patient to an ER. This is required regardless of the severity of the incident, even for low-acuity calls, which require neither a visit from EMTs or transport to an ER.

Five Professional Development 'Must-Dos' for Public Safety Organizations & Pros

Ten years ago this month, the United States Congress recognized April as “National 911 Education Month”, and ever since the 911 community has organized dedicated events throughout their communities to support public education about this vital, life-saving service. This month also is a fitting time to look inward and focus attention on how much emphasis is placed on education within our own organizations, whether it be a 911 center or a company like ours.

At MCP, we view professional development and mentoring as an integral part of our culture. Not only does it help our staff members cultivate their knowledge and remain current on technological and operational developments, it also plays an important role in employee retention. Every year, we invest more than a million dollars in development and training because we recognize that not investing in our staff could negatively impact how we serve our clients.

For our clients, and public safety professionals in general, the same holds true. Invest in yourself and / or your agency and you will reap the rewards.

Professional development and mentoring in emergency communications has never been as important as it is today for two reasons.