New, Advanced 9-1-1 System to Improve Emergency Response Capabilities, Consolidate Operations, Add
Efficiencies and Lower Costs
Birmingham, Ala.,–Emergency CallWorks Inc., a leading provider of Next Generation 9-1-1 and incident management software for the public safety industry, announced today that the largest county in Alabama, Jefferson County, with an estimated 660,000 citizens has selected Emergency CallWorks (ECW) to supply advanced 9-1-1 call management and call mapping. The new system, built to meet and exceed the latest Next Generation (NG) 9-1-1 standards, will help improve emergency response capabilities, consolidate operations and add efficiencies as well as lower technology and operational costs.
The new NG 9-1-1 call management solution will be deployed with the capability to service all of the existing Public Safety Answering Points (PSAP’s) within the County. The Jefferson County Emergency Communications District serves all of unincorporated Jefferson County plus 18 incorporated cities and towns. This includes the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, nine other law enforcement agencies and 33 fire / EMS agencies across the county. “We are very excited about the new 9-1-1 emergency response capabilities and expansion of services we will be able to provide the citizens of Jefferson County,” said Howard Summerford, Director of Jefferson County 9-1-1 Emergency Communications District. “Upgrading to integrated call taking and call mapping software that utilizes the latest technologies such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and geo diverse, redundant hosting, will allow us to consolidate technology, reduce maintenance cost and add more operational continuity across the county for largescale emergencies. Implementing this solution aligns with our larger goals surrounding improved disaster emergency response, including our new dispatch center located in Center Point, Alabama.” Instead of building onto or upgrading from legacy 9-1-1 system technology, the ECW solution was developed from the ground up to take advantage of the new Next Generation 9-1-1 standards, the latest in technology and hosted deployments. The ECW 9-1-1 call management solution provides users with a more intuitive, web browser-based interface to manage calls. The software is built to allow faster innovation, more scalability, lower cost, fault tolerance and needs substantially less hardware than typical emergency call taking systems. The solution will be deployed in an easily scalable, geo-diverse, multi-site environment with flexibility and capacity to handle community growth, consolidation strategies and geographical or disaster recovery situations.
Summerford explains further, “Redundancy and ease of low cost expansion is outstanding and would be impossible
with our current technology platform. We will be able to add additional emergency response connectivity and better
technology across our entire area in a much more cost-effective manner and at a more rapid pace. In the near future
we will be able to adopt emergency texting standards as well as visual communications, all adding to the public’s
safety.”
ECW provides emergency call taking, mapping, incident management and decision support software solutions for
small rural PSAPs and large multi-site operations across the country. “We are especially proud to be advancing the
technological public safety capabilities in Jefferson County,” states Craig Parker, CEO of Emergency CallWorks. “In
addition to deployments from coast to coast, we now serve three of the largest counties in Alabama. Being based in
Jefferson County; these systems will be used to serve our own families, friends and neighbors.”
Summerford adds, “As we learned in our evaluation of NG 9-1-1 solutions, Emergency CallWorks enjoys a great
national reputation as a pioneer and leader in the future of 9-1-1 call taking and dispatch management. Not only are
we excited about providing the best public safety solution we can for our community, we can support high-tech jobs
here locally and partner with the fastest growing 9-1-1 software company in the industry.”
About Emergency CallWorks
Emergency CallWorks, Inc. provides the PSAP and Dispatch community with the industry’s first vertically and horizontally
integrated solution for the receipt of Next Generation 911 calls, dispatching of resources, and transmission of critical information
to the mobile workforce while providing a vast array of benefits from VoIP technology. Emergency CallWorks products improve control and administration of the E-911, Emergency Management and Dispatch workflow process while enhancing the speed and accuracy of emergency response. For more information, visit www.emergencycallworks.com.