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MONROE COUNTY 911 TAKES A QUANTUM LEAP TO NICE

When the Monroe County Emergency Communications Department (ECD) scrapped its old recording system for a new solution from NICE, it was no small step forward, but rather a quantum leap. The center had made do with bulky reel-to-reel tape recorders for years. "I think we were definitely on the tail end of the reel-to-reel," said John Merklinger, director of the Monroe County ECD and a 19-year veteran of the center. "So for us it was a huge jump forward, leaps and bounds," he added.

A NICE solution and "nice" dealer too
The Center purchased a NICE recording solution from Wilmac, an independent distributor and authorized NICE dealer based in Rochester, New York. "One of the things that factored into our purchase decision was the close proximity to local sales and service," said Merklinger. "The service from Wilmac has been excellent, and they've just been incredible to work with."

The warranty and maintenance were also crucial factors in the County's decision to go with NICE and Wilmac, because according to Merklinger, "maintenance becomes a recurring cost in our operating budget. Not only was NICE the best solution, but the maintenance and recurring costs were very reasonable."

Located in upstate New York on Lake Ontario, Monroe County has the largest population of any county in the region. The Monroe County ECD is the central answering point for all of Monroe County, including the City of Rochester. The Center, operated by the City under contract with Monroe County, takes over 1.2 million calls per year, dispatching services for over 76 different agencies. "We take all of the emergency calls for police, fire, and ambulance," noted Merklinger, "as well as non-emergency calls."

Wilmac installed the new 208 channel recording system from NICE in the County's newly-renovated center in January of 2004, and according to Merklinger, the difference from the old technology has been like night and day. "There's virtually no comparison to the analog reel-to-reel recording system," he said.

Unprecedented redundancy - averting a worst case scenario
The NICE solution gives the County an unprecedented level of redundancy and backup, with redundant power supplies and other failsafe features. "We have two primary recorders and a third recorder that operates in a hot standby mode. It can take over for either one of the primary recorders in the unlikely event of a failure," explained Merklinger.

The system also stores each recording in three places, on a hard drive and on dual DVDs for added backup. Wilmac even installed a separate 48 channel recorder at the County's emergency backup site on the other side of the City. Both sites and systems are seamlessly connected over the County's fiber network.

Merklinger didn't mince words when he was asked why redundancy was so important. "We've had many cases in the last few years where our 911 recordings have actually resulted in convictions," he attested. "We've even had instances where individuals have confessed to crimes over the phone." What could happen if a recording was missed? Merklinger pondered the worst case scenario: "Imagine that somebody calls 911 to report a crime, confesses to it, and we don't have that recording for court," he said.

Improved access means better service
Another noticeable benefit of the new system is that it creates greater accessibility to captured calls - for everyone in the center who needs them. "Our old recorder wasn't on the network," Merklinger related. "With our new NICE solution, you can basically sit down at any computer anywhere in this building and get access to recordings. Before, we'd have to go to the tape room and load tapes to do research. Now we can get recordings instantaneously. Anyone with the appropriate security can access the system. It's so easy to use that our supervisors use it all the time," he added.

Merklinger says this is resulting in better service to the citizens of the community. "If a complaint comes in from a citizen at any time, even one o'clock in the morning, the shift supervisor can use NICE's Scenario Replay, [which is part of the County's system] to find the call, listen to it, and provide an instantaneous answer right then and there." The recording system even captures and stores the caller's ANI and ALI from the Center's CML phone system along with the voice recordings. "If somebody phones us and says 'I called 911 from xyz phone number,' even if they can't specify when they called, we can use the phone number to pull up the recording immediately," Merklinger said. "It saves a lot of time."

NICE's Scenario Replay is helping to save time in other ways too. The Monroe County Communications Center employs 178 highly-trained telecommunicators and dispatchers, all of whom are EMD certified. As part of its ongoing EMD program, calls are routinely reviewed for quality assurance. The Center's quality program received national recognition recently when the Monroe County ECD was named a Center of Excellence by the NAEMD. The award recognizes the efforts of the ECD staff to provide the highest level of service possible to the community. The County's NICE solution is integral to that effort.

The Center's two quality coordinators routinely review three percent of all of the calls that come into the Center for quality assurance, and every call involving a cardiac arrest, choking, childbirth, or other serious incident. The NICE solution has greatly facilitated this review process by making it easier for coordinators to access, score and share recorded calls.

It all begins with a CAD printout that provides details on each call such as an EMD code, a time and date reference, and the ANI (the caller's phone number). "Once they have the CAD printout," said Merklinger, "they can retrieve the recording using the date and time, or by entering the phone number of the caller, and access it instantaneously." An added benefit - the coordinator can save the call as a .wav file, and then email the call and completed evaluation form to the shift supervisor. The supervisor can then sit down with the employee and call up the recording and evaluation right from his or her PC.

Improving conviction rates and easing the workload
Each year, the Center receives over 4,000 requests for copies of recordings for court or investigative purposes, from the district attorney (DA) and different user agencies. Adding to that, a recent change in state law regarding domestic violence cases has created an upsurge in such requests. According to Merklinger, the recordings have increased the County's domestic violence conviction rate. But they've also increased the center's workload at the same time. Thankfully, it's a task made simpler with the NICE solution.

"On the old reel-to-reel, by the time we found the tape, loaded it and did the research, then copied the recording over to cassette to send to the DA, and filled out the necessary paperwork, it could take a minimum of 45 minutes to an hour for each request," lamented Merklinger. "Now with Scenario Replay, we can sit down, click a couple of buttons, and literally we've got the recording in a minute. We can copy it as a .wav file and send it over to the DA. We can even email it. It's a major time saver."

With so much added efficiency, there's still one other major benefit for Merklinger's staff. Thanks to the time they are able to save, his researchers have been freed up to work on less mundane and more strategic projects, such as long-range planning.

With success in leaps and bounds, you'd think Merklinger - who's also busy serving on the Board of Directors for the E911 Institute and as president of his state's chapter of NENA - might be content to rest on his laurels. But not so - he has big plans for the future. Merklinger is looking forward to using the NICE solution to boost productivity and customer service in the ECD even further - and in new ways. He envisions a new era of self-sufficiency for the County, a day when local DAs can access recordings and conduct research right from their own password-protected network-connected computer laptops. "The NICE solution is so intuitive and easy to use. It would improve efficiency all the way around," he said. Who knows - maybe that will be the next quantum leap into the future for Merklinger and Monroe County.