Starting the first week in July, Neshoba County's emergency communications office will receive an upgrade that will improve its efficiency by installing a computer-assisted dispatching (CAD) system.
The new system will record important information about all 911 calls the county receives, and will allow dispatchers and emergency responders to do their job more accurately and efficiently without a need for pen and paper, officials said.
The CAD system will allow emergency dispatchers to store this emergency dispatch information with the assistance of a computer that uses a server located in the central dispatch office.
Dispatchers here currently record information about emergency responses manually, using paper and pen.
"With this new system everything will be on an on-line service system," said Jeff Mayo, director of Neshoba County Emergency Management. "It will give us the capability to generate automatic reports with all the information we need to respond to an emergency."
He said things like addresses, times of incidents, and names of callers will be stored permanently in a database. The system will also provide unit recommendations for each call such as law enforcement, fire departments or ambulance, among others. If a call comes from the same number more than once in a period of 30 days, information about the previous call will appear as well.
"The computer will be able to make recommendations about what units to send to each call based on the type of incident that is reported," Mayo said. "It will send automatic notifications to various emergency response entities depending on the type of call it is."
When emergency calls are handled manually like they are now, a 911 dispatcher determines what kind of units to send to each incident and information is recorded on paper. With CAD, a computer will be responsible for these things.
"This technology will speed up our response time and bring our already state-of-the-art 911 system even more up to date," said Sheriff Donnie Adkins.
"Having information about a caller before we get to the scene will help emergency responders a ton."
In some cases, the CAD system can even be used to send a text message to a cell phone, providing information about a call.
To attain the system, Neshoba's 911 dispatch center must install CAD software, a server and other components to make it operable. Dispatchers must receive a small amount of additional training to learn how to use the new equipment.
Installments will be made the first week in July, and an eight-hour training session on July 7-8 will teach dispatchers the basics of CAD operation.
The county will switch over to fully using CAD on Thursday, July 9.
This upgrade will cost a total of $130,516. The county received a Homeland Security grant for $19,740 to cover some of the cost, and has also applied for other grants to help pay for the project, Mayo said.
"We have wanted a CAD for a number of years," he said. "This will be new for us and may take some time to get used to, but in the long run it will make things easier and more efficient for our dispatchers and responders."
