By Jack Minch
Lowell Sun
TOWNSEND, Mass. — A $250,000 upgrade for the emergency-services dispatch center’s radios and software that was approved nearly two years ago at Town Meeting is finally being tested and is expected to go online in the coming months, police Lt. David Profit said.
However, new software that will allow paramedics to complete paperwork while on the road is expected to be up and running in about a month, said Fire Chief Donald Klein.
The $22,500 cost of the software for paramedics was not included in the Town Meeting appropriation and is being paid from an account funded by patients who used the town’s ambulance services, he said.
“The EMS people on the trucks can write up their reports and download them here to the server,” Klein said.
The Fire Department already purchased three refurbished Panasonic Toughbook laptops for paramedics to use in the field. The laptops each cost about $5,000 new, but the department paid $2,500 for each, Klein said.
The software is part of an overall upgrade of the computer system in the 20-year-old police station’s dispatch center on Brookline Road.
“A lot of it has to do with agency security and safety,” Profit said.
The new system will eventually provide information on such things as the locations of fire hydrants and intersections, and even medical information, such as whether residents at a specific address are using oxygen, Klein said.
The dispatch center is transitioning from its old Motorola system to a new computer network that includes a records-management system for the Fire Department, Profit said.
“We are very close,” Profit said. “We did a cut-over to our new network about two weeks ago.”
Testing is ongoing, Profit said.
Once the new system goes online, it will let the Police and Fire departments share information, as well as let officers pull up information without going through the dispatcher, he said.
It will also provide track locations of emergency vehicles throughout town.
That will improve the dispatching of fire engines and police cars because it will be easier for dispatchers to tell where resources are located, Klein and Profit said.
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