Newsletter - October 2005

In this Issue:

1) Symposium Announces Two New CAD Clients

2) New Integrations Expand Power of the Horizon EME CAD System

Symposium Installs Integrated CAD/RMS/Alarm Monitoring System for Peabody Fire Department

With a population of just over 50,000, the City of Peabody is a diverse community located on the outskirts of Boston. When the fire department decided that a computer aided dispatch system was required to enhance response, Symposium’s advanced technology and excellent reputation caught their interest. But, as the saying goes, seeing is believing, and for that reason department staff decided the best thing to do was to take a look for themselves by visiting a nearby installation to view the system in action.

The Symposium system at Peabody is fully customized to reflect the department’s needs, and provides a host of integrations that tie existing third-party technologies directly into the CAD. These include the FIREHOUSE RMS system, ZETRON digital radio dispatch, and fire alarm detection and monitoring for over 600 premises. The result is a “force multiplier” affect, wherein all systems share information with and are accessible from the CAD. The result is better command and control, better situational awareness, and a safer, more effective response.

Peabody Fire is extremely pleased with the results: “Compared to what we had before, it’s night and day. The new system is simply amazing, both in term of the capabilities it gives us, and in terms of Symposium as a vendor and partner. They promised a full system, on time and on budget, and that’s exactly what they delivered.”

For its part, Symposium is very excited to be working with Peabody, both in terms of the specific project, as well as in terms of the company’s ongoing expansion. As company President, Robert Day puts it, “The growth we’re experiencing throughout the United States is very encouraging, in that it further confirms the value that clients see in our approach of emphasizing technology, service, speed, completeness and affordability. With Peabody in particular, we’re happy to help them break new ground, and make the best use of all the tools they have available. At the end of the day, it’s what we’re all about.”

For more information, or for those interested in seeing the system in action, please contact Symposium by emailing us at info@symposium911.com.

Iqaluit Fire Goes Live with New Horizon EME CAD system

The Horizon EME CAD system is now live with Iqaluit Fire, providing prompt and comprehensive dispatch capability for the capital of Canada’s northern Nunavut territory.

Iqaluit is the administrative capital of Nunavut, a vast territory of over 2 million square kilometers spanning several time zones. As the seat of government for the territory, Iqaluit is growing rapidly, and is home to many high-value buildings including schools, hospitals, and courts.

In addition to fire protection, Iqaluit Fire provides EMS/First Responder service to the city, and works closely with other departments such as RCMP and Public Works to provide comprehensive emergency response and management. The northern climate poses some unique challenges for providing fire protection, due to the permafrost and arctic weather that prevails for most of the year.

According to Greg Jewers, acting fire chief, the new CAD is expected to make a strong contribution to the department’s incident response: “The Symposium system helps on a number of levels, from assisting dispatchers in determining which vehicles to send, through to displaying the position and status of available hydrants, as well as providing information on key holders, stored chemicals, and other important information.”

Another important factor for the Iqaluit department is the ability to administer the system themselves, and to make changes that reflect the city’s growth and changing make-up. As Greg went on to say: “Being able to enter new building locations, hydrants and other information into the CAD ourselves is really invaluable – it enables us to take control of the situation, to have better information, and to in turn be better prepared for any situation that may arise.”

Symposium is very proud of its work with Iqaluit, and sees it as an expression of the flexibility of its business model of being able to provide full CAD systems for agencies of all sizes. According to Symposium’s Jeff Connors, the Symposium approach is something new in public safety technology: “Traditionally there have been two choices - high-performance high-cost systems, or low-performance, low-cost systems – either way the client really suffers, either monetarily or operationally. With our sliding per-capita based pricing, we’re able to provide top of the line performance to agencies of ALL sizes and budgets. Because smaller agencies perform the same vital tasks as bigger agencies, they should have access to the same support systems. For our part, it’s very satisfying to help make it happen.”

For more information, or for those interested in seeing the system in action, please contact Symposium by emailing us at info@symposium911.com.

Extending the Power of the EME - New Integrations with ProQA and Zetron

One of the most important considerations with CAD is making sure that it works with other technologies that your department may be utilizing, or may wish to acquire in the future. Often, this is the area that causes the most difficulty, as most vendors either haven’t designed their systems to work well with third party applications, or instead want to make you buy everything from them. In either case, the result is generally a great deal more stress, time, and expense.

Symposium takes a more straightforward and positive approach. The EME was designed from the ground up to integrate seamlessly with third-party systems, and letting you take maximum advantage of your existing technologies to distribute information and respond more effectively to emergencies.

Two of the latest integrations are with ProQA’s medical dispatching system, and Zetron’s digital radio console – two systems that are in widespread use in police, fire and EMS departments throughout the world.

ProQA utilizes a question and answer type of decision map (called an “expert system”) to assist dispatchers in providing guidance to callers in medical emergencies. The system prompts the dispatcher with questions to ask the caller and, based on the answers, it in turn provides advice to the caller as to what and what not to do until help arrives.

Now, the ProQA interface is available directly in the EME, and all prompts, questions, and instructions are recorded in the systems time-stamped chronology. Furthermore, the question and answer flow in ProQA can be configured to influence response call type and response recommendation. This greatly simplifies speed of access and response, as well as ensuring a full centralized audit-trail of actions for risk management purposes.

Zetron’s digital dispatch console enables the dispatcher to easily access various radio channels, as well as toning out personnel and vehicles for incident response. In the current integration, the CAD automatically prompts the Zetron system to tone out the appropriate vehicles for response and records this in the event chronology. As well, the CAD records when responding personnel indicate through the onsite Zetron interface that they are leaving the hall. This results in faster, more accurate response, and a more detailed and instructive audit trail.

These are just two of many examples of the various integrations that Symposium has undertaken at the request of clients. In all cases, the results are seamless, transparent integration, comprehensive information sharing, and practical, real-world solutions that improve performance and safety.

From a technology planning and budgeting point of view this approach provides you with the greatest flexibility and savings, by letting you choose your systems on price and performance, not on considerations of whether they will integrate. Ultimately, this means less stress, expense, and time, and greater capability. Or, as we at Symposium like to say, making technology work for you!

Next Issue

More contract announcements, new system enhancements, and lots of other great stuff!

Previous Newsletters : Dec 2003, Mar 2004, June 2004, July 2004, Oct 2004, Nov 2004, April 2005, Jun 2005

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