Cincinnati Emergency Communication Centre Leverages NICE for Digital Transformation

NICE has announced that the City of Cincinnati Emergency Communications Centre (ECC) has implemented NICE Inform Elite, one of the solutions in NICE’s Evidencentral platform, to digitally transform and automate processes around tracking performance metrics and performing targeted quality assurance reviews.

Through this transformation, NICE is helping the Cincinnati ECC improve operations while also supporting them in their mission to provide exceptional service.

As a combined 911/311 center, the ECC serves the Cincinnati metro area, handling approximately 750,000 emergency and non-emergency calls annually, with non-emergency 311 calls on a trajectory to double over the next year.

NICE Inform Elite provides the Cincinnati ECC with a single solution for capturing and analyzing ECC data, and automated solutions for data analysis and performance metrics reporting, as well as quality assuring emergency and non-emergency calls.

NICE Inform Elite’s intelligence centre dashboards provide instant visibility into what’s performing and what isn’t in the centre with dozens of real-time dashboards and metrics focused on call handling and response. Administrative staff can also create their own custom dashboards with no technical expertise required.

Chris Wooten, Executive Vice President, NICE, said, “Emergency communications centres have no shortage of data, but today, because that data resides in many disjointed systems, it can mask the truth and severely limit an ECC’s ability to see where improvements need to be made.

Because NICE provides a single system of record for all types of incident data, we can unlock the truth to give agencies, like the Cincinnati ECC, the insights they need to continuously improve emergency response.”

Cincinnati Emergency Communications Centre Director Bill Vedra, said, “At the Cincinnati ECC, our mission is to connect people to the help they need, whether they’re calling with an emergency, or for help with other city services.

We’ve set our sights on being the best metropolitan 911 and 311 centre in America, and as such, we are laser-focused on continuous improvement.

NICE is supporting us in our mission by giving us a birds-eye view of the metrics behind the work our telecommunicators do, so we can fine-tune performance, and provide timely feedback, coaching and training.”

“We have a lot of data in our centre but it’s not easily viewable and digestible,” added Vedra. “With NICE Inform Elite, instead of waiting months or weeks for reports, in a very short amount of time, I was able to dive in and immediately start creating custom dashboards myself.”

For example, the Centre has been able to gain insight into how its use of ASAP-to-PSAP (a national service which streamlines exchange of alarm information between monitoring stations and emergency dispatch), has helped to reduce 911 call volume and improve PSAP operations.

“Using NICE Inform Elite, we were able to create a dashboard to track the number and types of alarm incidents we were getting through ASAP-to-PSAP (versus traditional 911 calls), and their ultimate disposition,” said Vedra.

A separate dashboard was also created to analyze how often and effectively police officers were using self-service tools, in lieu of calling 911 operators to communicate basic information.

“We’ve had ASAP-to-PSAP for a few years now, but we’ve never really been able to analyze whether we achieved a return on our investment,” said Vedra.

“Using NICE Inform Elite, we were able to create a dashboard to track the number of alarm incidents we were getting through ASAP-to-PSAP, versus traditional 911 calls.”

The ECC was also able to quantify and track the types of alarm calls, and their ultimate disposition (false alarms or true emergencies).

Vedra also created a separate dashboard to analyze how often and effectively police officers were using self-service tools, in lieu of calling 911 operators to communicate basic information.

The ECC will also rely on NICE Inform Elite to continuously improve call handling for non-emergency and emergency calls. NICE Inform Elite enables automated quality assurance of calls based on CAD incident type.

The ECC plans to use NICE Inform Elite to conduct quality assurance reviews of high-risk calls, such as cardiac arrests, and to ensure proper transfer of calls to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

With the addition of screen recording, operational support staff are able to review what telecommunicators said, heard and did during the call, and troubleshoot system issues and human factors which impact call handling.

About NICE

NICE is a leading global enterprise software provider that enables organizations to improve customer experience and business results, ensure compliance and fight financial crime. Their mission is to help customers build and strengthen their reputation by uncovering customer insight, predicting human intent and taking the right action to improve their business.

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