After a series of malfunctions, Dane County officials are looking to make improvements to their new 911 Computer-Aided Dispatching Emergency System in order to reduce the number of dispatch errors.
Fitchburg Fire Chief Randy Pickering said, if effective, the current seven-month-old system works like any modern computer application with “feature-rich software” that can more accurately locate incidents and send the necessary background information to the appropriate recipients.
However, the system’s effectiveness has been in question after a string of recent issues with dispatching for emergencies around Dane County, Pickering said. He said the different issues that have stemmed from mistakes made by the system range from wrong locations being dispatched to incorrect personnel being called to a specific incident.
These occurrences have resulted in several miscommunications in serious situations, leaving many emergency officials “scratching their heads,” Pickering added.
“There was a car crash, and the Fitchburg Police Department was dispatched to it, but the Madison Fire Department was dispatched, which makes no sense,” Pickering said.
In addition to communication mishaps, he said dispatchers trying to gather accurate information from the system have also had difficulties, adding dispatchers currently must verify the information from the computer instead of trusting the received data.
“They have to stop and look at it and think through it, and check if it’s sending the right thing, the right people, the right equipment to the call,” he said.
Pickering said these “little annoyances” have increased the stress and workload of the dispatchers who are trying to send out crucial and accurate information as quickly as possible. On top of these efficiency issues, Pickering said these mix-ups and delays could result in serious consequences for people in need of immediate care.
Despite its problems, Pickering was complimentary of Dane County’s decision to upgrade its emergency dispatch system, claiming the former system lacked modern technological capabilities and was expensive to maintain.
“The system was a very old, very outdated and reaching a point where it was hard to find people,” Pickering said.
Still, Dane County 911 Center Director John Dejung said when the system is working correctly, it has made great strides in improving emergency reaction times in comparison to the old system.
“The response times have gone down 10 seconds this October with the [Computer-Aided Dispatching] compared to last October,” he said.
To help resolve some of the recent dispatching issues, Dejung said the County is putting different strategies into effect. He said one of these methods is working with the Dane County Land Information Office so updated geographic information information could be provided by mid-December.
In the meantime, Dejung said the county is working to deal with the issues created by the system.
“[The county is] in the midst of retraining all of their dispatchers on some coping mechanisms for how to deal with the Geographic Information System information we have now,” Dejung said.
He added the issues are not as bad how some reports to the public have made them seem. He said although problems do exist, progress is being made toward finding solutions.
