The Boston Police Department (PD) has selected the full suite of NICE Inform solutions to Bolster Efficiency, Service and Next Generation 9-1-1 Readiness for deployment.
NICE Inform’s quality assurance, multimedia incident reconstruction, and IP telephony and radio recording solutions will be deployed at three sites, including its primary and backup 9-1-1 centers.
The new technology will also support Boston’s EMS Dispatch Operations, which is co-located with the Police 9-1-1 center.
The NICE solutions anchor on other technology investments that the Boston PD has made as it transitions to an IP-based, interoperable, Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) ready, public safety environment.
“Our mission is to use innovative strategies and partnerships to protect and serve the citizens of Boston,” said Shawn Romanoski, Director of Telecommunications, Boston Police Department.
“The work we’re doing with NICE to upgrade our 9-1-1 center technology is one way we’re accomplishing that. It’s also critical to our preparation for Next Generation 9-1-1.”
NICE’s certified direct integration with the Airbus DS VESTA® VoIP 9-1-1 system means that the Boston PD can reliably capture its IP-based emergency communications.
The Boston PD will begin accepting SMS 9-1-1 texts next year, and thanks to the new NICE technology, they’ll already be prepared to record and manage these communications as well.
“As the first police department in the U.S., the Boston Police Department enjoys a rich tradition of being a pioneer in policing and public safety,” said Christopher Wooten, Executive Vice President, NICE.
“With their continued work with NICE, the Boston PD is now redefining what it means to be a leader by applying technology to improve service and solve everyday problems, while building a solid foundation for the future.”
Boosting Efficiency and Quality Assurance
Consistent, ongoing quality assurance (QA) is vital to every public safety answering point (PSAP).
The Boston PD will use NICE Inform Evaluator to ensure that its telecommunicators are following proper protocols and that the systems they rely on are properly supporting them – so they can provide the highest levels of service to Boston’s residents and visitors.
Like many police departments, the Boston PD performs QA reviews on telecommunicator calls today, but until now it has been a highly manual and subjective process.
With NICE Inform Evaluator, manual call selection will be replaced by automated call selection; and paper-based forms will be replaced by electronic scoring where evaluation results are automatically tabulated, tracked and shared.
“We’ll be far more automated from a QA perspective, and we’ll be able to complete evaluations and provide feedback much faster,” said Romanoski.
Boston PD also plans to use NICE’s screen recording, synchronized with voice recordings, to better understand what happens during calls.
“It’s going to be a great tool for us for QA and training,” added Romanoski. “If something goes wrong, we’ll be able to understand why and correct it.”
Expediting Records Requests
The Boston PD churns out about 6,000 records requests annually, for district attorneys, detectives, media and private citizens.
NICE Inform will eliminate wasted time on duplicate requests. Records will be stored in Inform’s electronic incident folders, cross-referenced to computer aided dispatch (CAD) Incident IDs or court case numbers, so there will never be a need to do the same work twice.
“With our old system, whenever we received a duplicate request, we would have to go back and recreate the entire incident recording all over again,” said Romanoski.
“Once we create a scenario in Inform and save it, we can easily find and retrieve the original and provide an exact duplicate.”
NICE is working with its partner Business Electronics (BEI) to deploy the NICE solutions at the Boston PD.
The Boston Police Department
The Boston Police Department, dating back to 1838, holds the primary responsibility for law enforcement and investigation within the city of Boston, Massachusetts.
Boston Police Department, First in the NationIt has the distinction of being the first police department in the nation.
The Boston Police Department mission is to use innovative strategies and partnerships to protect the citizens of Boston and strives to be a role model for police departments nationwide.
The Boston Police Department Emergency 9-1-1 Center is part of the Operations Division of the department and is the primary public safety answering point (PSAP) within the geographic boundaries of the City of Boston.
NICE Inform Elite in 2017 ‘ASTORS’ Homeland Security Awards Program
The 2017 ‘ASTORS’ Homeland Security Awards Program, organized to recognize the most distinguished vendors of Physical, IT, Port Security, Law Enforcement, First Responders, (Fire, EMT, Military, Support Services Vets, SBA, Medical Tech) as well as the Federal, State, County and Municipal Government Agencies – to acknowledge their outstanding efforts to ‘Keep our Nation Secure, One City at a Time.’
As an ‘ASTORS’ competitor, the NICE Inform Elite will be competing against the industries leading providers of 911 Recording and Analytics.
Good luck to NICE Inform on becoming a Winner of the 2017 American Security Today’s Homeland Security Awards Program!
To learn more about NICE for Public Safety visit http://www.nice.com/protecting/what-we-do and http://www.nice.com/protecting/public-safety/nice-inform
