New Service for tracking who's responding

[Monty 35]

Heard about this on the firehouse.com Through the Smoke podcast. The Emergency Responder Reply System. Seems to be a pretty neat idea - thought up by one of our own, relatively cheap too, my understanding is $800/year.

I'm sure this would help with many of those calls where you hear for members to call dispatch to determine if they have a crew, or have to go to mutual aid.

I would think this could be useful for the County teams like the Hazmat, or C&O.

[Guest pentax02839]

very intresting.the price does not sound to bad

[x129K 1,393]

We are currently looking into this system

[Guest Photounit]

Many departments accomplish the same thing as this with their radios on their own FG channel which works pretty well....

Good concept but IMO you need to have the info displayed in the apparatus and chiefs vehicles.... In my county there is no way our 911 center can or will monitor something like this so it has to be done by the individual departments..... They say it is web based which means it is feasible to do it mobile via Verizons EVDO..... I'm curious to see if this catches on.... I think being able to have access to the data in a mobile environment is a necessity though....

[mikeinet 37]

Well with a system like this... I think it's quite easy to set this up for a county-wide level. Dispatch a dept... a dispatcher can see "oh I only have a driver" after say 3min... re-dispatch automatically for an EMT... I think this would be QUITE ideal for a county-wide system. Obviously you can't deal with scheduling for crews and such but just to make sure that a call is covered... seems pretty interesting.

[RadnorCo15 0]

Just finished trialing this system here... It's only good if you remember to use it. Admin functions are limited, but it does do group email/text paging.

[x129K 1,393]

Just finished trialing this system here... It's only good if you remember to use it. Admin functions are limited, but it does do group email/text paging.

Did you like it enough to purchase it?

[RadnorCo15 0]

It depends on what features you are interested in... the fire/ems scheduling just didn't have the features we wanted. The responding-reply system worked very well and would give you a good idea of your staffing for a call (especially 2nd ambulance calls) who was coming down and their approx ETA. With that though, everyone needs to participate every time or else it's a useless tool. The phone/email text paging was another great feature since we eliminated our alpha pagers and went with the ""free" county pagers that are good paperweights. Are these capabilities worth $800/year, $66/month? I think so.

[Guest]

We are a combination fire department and ambulance. We have used the Emergency Responder Reply System for 3 months now, and it works great. If anyone wants to know if its worth it, it is!

The responder system is the reason to own this! We never knew who was coming to our calls before, but we do now. I used to (before we got the system) wait for persons to arrive (before rolling the truck), who never showed up. Now I know who is coming, so I wait if people are responding, but I never wait if no one else has called in. I can honestly say that I am getting out to calls faster, and with all the people who are responding since I am not leaving them behind. Some of my members have told me that they like the system because they are making the trucks more frequently since we are not leaving without them.

Most of our members use it, though some were slow to change of course. Some persons had to "get in the habit" of picking up a phone and speed dialing a number. For the most part, everyone who we rely on to make calls uses it. If everyone does not use it, it still is helpful. What is important is that everyone who is active uses it. Those who show up to a few calls a year, who cares. I wouldn't not get this just because of them.

One of our career members is now a firm believer in it. A few days ago, our ambulance was requested to respond to a low priority BLS call. He did not want to send a two paramedic ambulance to the call. They paged out for members, and a driver appeared on the screen instantly. He waited for the driver to arrive, and we held the paramedic back for our community.

I have heard other stories from other departments in the area. One story is where mutliple calls for smoke showing came in during the day, but only 2 firefighters showed up. They were the only 2 on the iamresponding screen. They paged again, but no one else showed up on the screen. Instead of waiting another 8 minutes for the automatic dispatch, since they knew they were the only 2 responding, they got 2 other departments responding immediately. That must be the type of story that Chief Goldfeder spoke about on his through the smoke radio show.

The reason we use it is for the responder system (call in feature), but we heavily utilize the few other features it offers are nice additions:

1. Schedule feature - we used to use a "white board" system, where we wrote on a board. If you are looking to replace this type of scheduling system, it works great. I can log on from where ever I am (like at work) and put myself on the schedule for the night. When my shift comes up, my name goes on the schedule. One hour before my schedule, it sends me a text message that I am on duty in an hour. All of our members' hours are totalled so reporting is easy. If you are looking for a basic scheduling program, this is it. If you are looking for a complicated scheduling system (which I was quoted $8,000 a year from another company) this isn't for you. It does not do everything the complicated scheduling systems do, but it does everything a basic whiteboard type schedule does, but better and with less work! The purpose of the schedule in our department is to know that we have an adequate staff at any given moment, and it does that well

2. Text messaging - we can send out announcements using a very simple interface. Works great. We created 4 groups of types of members (line officers, all members, career staff and volunteer members). We send out text messages/emails/alphanumeric pages from whereever we are. I can be at work and send out messages. A neat feature.

3. Scrolling message: Actually, its not a bad way to get messages out to members, as people read the screen when they walk in to the station. Also, persons home and at work use this as a page in their background, so they view the scrolling messages every day. It has helped communications in our department.

Initially there were some issues where we were losing our internet connection. I learned that our connection was going down a few times a day (as do many connections). I learned today that the responder system is uploading a fix that will automatically log you back into the system, without you doing anything, even when the problem is on your end. That will be significant!

I am happy to answer questions about it if anyone has them.

Edited August 20, 2007 by Rescuelt32

[Guest]

I have to tell a quick story about this system, as it reduced the response times to a 3 department call by over 2 minutes (at least).

We get a call for three departments to respond. Two departments, one being ours, had no one appear on the "responder board" in the first minute or two. After the second minute or so, instead of waiting for the automatic dispatch at the 5th minute mark, we called for a second activation of our volunteers.

4 people responded on the board.

At the same time we called for a second activation, another department who also uses the responder system, and was responding to the same call, also called for a second activation (also 2-3 minutes earlier than the automatic reactivation). They also had responders start coming after that activation.

The vol's who did not originally respond were eating dinner, but came because no one else was coming. Instead of waiting for another 2-3 minutes, BOTH departments were able to get on the air and tell our departments that we needed more people.

That was incredible!

I wonder if the $800 we pay each year was worth it to the day care owner's place we responded to 2-3 minutes faster. If our service is about reducing our response times, this did it for us.

Edited August 30, 2007 by Rescuelt32

[Guest seanc]

this sounds like an awesome program, and very useful, just one question though, is their a way to have the program separate responders into categories? Such as a category for truck company members, engine company and so forth?

[Guest]

Check out this link: http://www.iamresponding.com/Pages/SampleResponder.aspx

It is the sample screen of what we see. The top half is scheduling. Bottom half is the responding screen (who is responding to the call). As you can see, every person's job description (interior, exterior, FF/EMT, chief, etc) is listed next to their names when they respond.

The calls seem to appear in the order received. I do not think that it separates them into groups by types of members. For that, you would probably need 2 systems, which according to the price sheet I have, is 1/2 the cost for a 2nd subscription.

You create your own categories of membership, like "Interior E-1" You can do that if you desire, but the titles stick. In other words, you dont' really change them on a day by day basis.

Edited August 31, 2007 by Rescuelt32

[Guest feraldan]

Where was the pricing page? I was looking and couldn't find anything.

[JBJ1202 27]

My department has just began the two month free trial on this program. We are in the process of entering our members into the system. A computer has been set up in our engine room with the site running 24/7. If anyone has questions you can give me a shout. I'll let y'all know how its going...

[Guest feraldan]

I didn't see a cost and would love to know the annual fees.

[JBJ1202 27]

$650/year

2.3 cents per call charged to the dept.

(numbers might not be exact... just trying to remember off the top of my head.)

[INIT915 1,119]

Rescuelt32, work on commission?

[Monty 35]

My understanding is that it is an anuual fee of $800 for one installation. If you wanted multiple, then apparently there is a discount.

[antiquefirelt 994]

OK I just set my dept up yesterday on the two month free trail. The pricing as of that time:

1 year=$800

3 years= $725/yr.

5 years= $650/yr.

better pricing for multiple depts/comm centers?

Plus a one time $50 activation/set-up fee

Plus $.028 per call ($28/1000 calls) class are to a toll free number and don't cost individuals anything.

So far we really like the potential of the system. Some scheduling things are not as easy as we'd like, but this is still pretty damn cheap for what it is.

[Guest]

OK I just set my dept up yesterday on the two month free trail. The pricing as of that time:

1 year=$800

3 years= $725/yr.

5 years= $650/yr.

better pricing for multiple depts/comm centers?

Plus a one time $50 activation/set-up fee

Plus $.028 per call ($28/1000 calls) class are to a toll free number and don't cost individuals anything.

So far we really like the potential of the system. Some scheduling things are not as easy as we'd like, but this is still pretty damn cheap for what it is.

[x129K 1,393]

TTT for BOBO