Communications Center Consolidation Considerations

Consolidation and data sharing are becoming a fast reality for public safety agencies (9-1-1 call taking, police, fire, and EMS dispatching) among different jurisdictions (cities, towns, townships, counties, regions, or organizations)  with different needs.

Is your agency considering consolidation?  Click here for APCO's Communications Center Consolidation Considerations: A guide for those contemplating the consolidation of one or more Public Safety Answering Points.

Dispatch center consolidation and cross agency data sharing require a tailored approach.  TriTech has the right fit for every combination.  To download our case study "Improving Public Safety through Consolidation", click here.
 

Revision Assessment for the Incorporation of Fire and EMS Functions into the Law Enforcement CAD Functional Specifications Completed

The IJIS Institute , a nonprofit organization that focuses on mission-critical information sharing for justice, public safety, and homeland security, announces the release of the Revision Assessment for the Incorporation of Fire and EMS Functions into the Law Enforcement CAD Functional Specifications.

As municipalities and jurisdictions seek to consolidate their communications centers, facilities, and technologies, more and more centers are using unified CAD systems that serve law enforcement, fire, and EMS for single and multiple jurisdictions. The transition of the CAD Functional Specifications document from an exclusively law enforcement CAD standard is reflective of this change in the public safety operational environment. The inclusion of fire and EMS CAD standards, as well as the update of generic standards, is in keeping with current best practices in the broader public safety discipline.

The document may be of particular use to those drafting Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for CAD systems that need to support dispatching fire or EMS – either alone or in addition to law enforcement.
 
Download the document here.

Justice XML: What is it, and what does it mean for your agency? (Law Enforcement Technology, April 2005)
 

Perhaps you've come across the words "justice XML" when researching a new CAD system. What do they mean? Justice XML refers to GJXDM, the Global Justice XML Data model, which uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) as a framework to structure information in a document. This provides the structure and semantics that enable law enforcement and criminal justice systems to share information among agencies, regardless of how that information is represented in each system.

TriTech recognizes the importance of this initiative and has been involved with the Integrated Justice Information Systems Institute (IJIS). The attached article explains the reason behind the creation of these communication standards and features insight from TriTech CEO, Chris Maloney and Paul Wormeli, the executive director of IJIS. Read more.