We at the Johnson County KS Emergency Communications Center pride ourselves on our operations and the technology we have available to use to do our jobs every day. We provide Fire and EMS services, and are a secondary PSAP, providing 911 call taking and dispatching for fire and medical calls, with certified EMD call takers for medical events. We service 10 fire agencies and 2 ambulance agencies, dispatching and managing resources before, during, and after events.

As a proud Colorado native, I thought about all of my friends, co-workers and customers who will be coming to APCO 2017 in August. As a ski patroller (during the winter months), I thought that I should make sure they’re prepared. With that being said, if you’re a public safety professional headed to the Mile High City of Denver for the APCO 2017 Conference, this blog has everything you must do!

Technology is pushing the 911 industry forward. Technological advancement is an important element of helping emergency responders and dispatchers be efficient at their jobs, and because of this, it is always a challenge to keep up with new emerging technologies. Of course the private sector gets the latest in new developments first, and then they work their way into public safety market. What similarly seems to happen is that the digital side of the product pushes the envelope, and afterwards, the hardware side is left to catch up.

Perhaps you’ve been noticing that your current work space just isn’t what is used to be. Maybe the furniture is beginning to show some breakdown, or perhaps the style is simply outdated and unpleasant to look at. Even worse, maybe your colleagues are hunched over the desks and operating their jobs in uncomfortable positions. And they’re telling you about it. (Image via GIPHY)

If you have ever bought a new house, you know that the house comes basically as a shell. Without knowing it, this probably means that you'll be getting carpet in your kitchen and laminate flooring throughout. As for the carpet, you'll get the choice a hideous shade of gray or an even worse shade of what they call "beige" and a lackluster carpet pad that might as well be non-existent. Anything that would be included and installed as “standard” is often the cheapest of the cheap. You'll have to expand your budget or subtract some common features if you’re even going to start thinking about doing things like changing the paint color or adding hardwood floors. All the sudden that dream home you'd visioned is looking a bit more cloudy.

This time of year, many organizations are planning to remodel, upgrade or build a new command center. If this is happening for you, the amount of decisions you need to make for success of the project can seem enormous. One of the decisions may include new consoles, desks and furniture for the project. Now is the time to go for it! The budget approval for your new consoles may be relatively small as compared to the million dollar or so project at hand, but, how it can help your operator’s daily lives is huge.

You’re right in the middle of shopping for new dispatch furniture, and you realize that you don’t know what to do about all the ancillary storage and furniture in the room. You can’t just keep the old steel HON file cabinets when they are ugly and do not match anything. So how do you complete your room after shopping for dispatch furniture?

There are many different avenues out there when purchasing your height-adjustable dispatch workstations and dispatch furniture. Some 911 Comm Centers require a three-quote process, others purchase directly off of state contracts, and some "piggy-back" off of open contracts in their states. If your 911 Comm Center chooses or requires a formal bid process, the journey can be more complicated than you expect! You will have to draft up arequest for proposal (RFP), which often has an addendum or two. Then you also have to think about reviewing and scoring the submittals. Then, when the RFP is closed and the vendor is awarded, you might think, "Hooray! We're in the clear!" Let me put the brakes on that dream wagon; there's still some more work to do.

We all know by now that stress can be a huge issue for those in 911 dispatch. But, what if you could eliminate some stress with a few helpful suggestions, would you? Well, what about something as simple as improving your work area? Yes, the place where you spend a significant amount of time at during your work day. Think it’s worth a try to reduce stress and dissatisfaction? I do. So here are my tips for improving your work area:

I have witnessed many instances where 911 Comm Center staff members are shopping for new equipment, but they will not call any references of the vendors-in-question. I am not sure why this is? Maybe the dispatch managers know that the companies they’re looking into will only send them the “good” references, maybe they simply do not have the time to call around, or maybe they just feel silly asking someone else if they’ve made a good choice or not.