These Technology Startups Help First Responders And Shorten 911 Response Times - Forbes

In this Dec. 18, 2017 file photo, cars from an Amtrak train lay spilled onto Interstate 5 below alongside smashed vehicles as some train cars remain on the tracks above in DuPont, Wash. Dozens of 911 call recordings released by South Sound 911 Dispatch provide a vivid account of the Dec. 18 wreck from survivors and witnesses. Authorities say it could take more than a year to understand how the train carrying 85 passengers and crew members could have ended in disaster as it made its inaugural run along a fast, new 15-mile (24-kilometer) bypass route. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, file)

The National Emergency Number Association (NENA), which promotes 911 awareness, estimates that Americans make around 240 million emergency and nonemergency 911 calls a year and 911 centers are short staffed, cellphone calls swamp call centers and average response times are slower. The average response time as of October 2018, which varies city by city and by priority, is 10 minutes.

The 911 system in the US was created in 1967 after then Bell Labs (now AT&T) met with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish a system that could be adopted for national use, which happened in 1968. Since that time, the 911 system has been built on legacy systems to run and manage the network.

It isn't just a dispatch shortage that's affecting 911 systems, governments have also contributed to the lack of updated 911 systems. In March 2018, the Rhode Island legislature diverted its 68% of its 911 funds to balance the state budget. The Rhode Island 911 system currently lacks a global positioning system (GPS), the current system can only determine the caller’s location within three-quarters of a square mile; emergency medical dispatch and medical translation.

Carbyne, an Israeli emergency communication platform startup has created a call handling platform they say can cut response time by up to 50%. The company has several first responder users in Fayette County, Georgia; Nice, France; Israel and Mexico City.

The company has $23.9 million in funding former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Elsted Capital Partners and the Founders Fund. Their CEO and founder, Amir Elichai, says that new technology is filling the void in the midst of this 911 dispatcher shortage.  

“An alarming number of public safety answering points (PSAPs) in the U.S. is experiencing a significant shortage in 911 dispatchers. As a result, municipal, state and federal governments are turning to new technology to upgrade their 911 systems to help fill the void of missing talent – but also to attract new talent,” said Elichai. “Next generation 911 technology provides dispatchers with the ability to pinpoint caller location, send text messages to callers, stream live video, receive caller information efficiently, and gather information from a huge array of sources in seconds. All of this helps reduce response time and maximize resources, even if a call center is understaffed.”

Elichai says that call-takers and dispatchers have an extremely demanding job and have to make quick judgement calls on what can be life-and-death situations, which is often based on fragmented or inadequate information.

"The Public Safety industry is currently burdened with outdated technology in most 911 call centers. However, the emergency services sector is quickly adopting innovations that can reduce these pressures while allowing dispatchers to gather information from callers as efficiently and effectively as possible,” added Elichai.

Cradlepoint, Boise, Idaho-based startup with $162.8 million in total funding delivers cloud-delivered edge solution for 4G LTE and 5G networks. The company has deployed their solution in more than 1,000 local, state and federal public safety and first responder organizations across the United States.  According to the company, they now have public safety and first responder deployments in every state. In the United States. Their deployments provide mission-critical data networks for vehicles, mobile command centers, surveillance cameras, and incident response teams, as well as secure connectivity for in-vehicle, on-scene and body-worn devices.

New York-based Mark43, a police technology startup that has raised $38 million as of 2018, is a cloud-based record management system with computer-aided dispatch that uses Amazon Web Services. Mark43 is a platform that enables organizations like the Richmond, California, Police Department to access and share crime data in real time. Mark43's CEO was on the Forbes 30 Under 30 List in 2018. 

But while some city and national governments are implementing updated call and communications technology (video footage, texting, exact location pinpointing) or using cloud-based solutions, some are also turning to artificial intelligence (AI) and drones to employ analytical disaster assessment, give first responders real-time analysis on the ground or give dispatchers the insight to make faster and more accurate diagnosis of calls.

In 2016 in Denmark, dispatchers in Copenhagen used AI from a startup called, Corti in a pilot that listened to words and sounds from 911 calls to prompt dispatches to ask the right questions to get a fast diagnosis if the caller was having a cardiac arrest. The AI was created to help emergency medical dispatchers make life-saving decisions by prompting them with the right questions based on the words, sounds, breathing,  from the call to get a more accurate diagnosis. The AI was tested on 161,000 emergency calls, and it was 93% accurate in identifying cardiac arrest where human dispatchers were at 73%.

In the fight against Northern California's Camp Fire, a California startup called Edgybees uses augmented reality (AR) overlay of drone footage with 3D mapping technology to give first responders real-time footage of their surroundings. According to the company spokeswoman, Samantha Sharpe, Edgybees is being used by first responders on the ground and in command and control centers with live, critical geographical data. The company has raised $5.5 million to date.

Sharpe says that their First Response software was developed for first responders engaged in complex emergency scenarios. "While it can also be used with CCTV and other kinds of cameras, First Response is being implemented on drones to assist first responders’ efforts in Northern California," said Sharpe.

"By using Edgybees’ 3D mapping tech and AR the brave men and women are able to see where gas mains and power lines are, houses and street names, and the locations of team members- regardless of the smoke and fire obstructing their view," said Sharpe.

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