Emergency Reporting Blog

Job Opening - Software Developer

2011-08-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting is continues to grow the product and currently has a position open for a Software Developer. Check out the descriptions at the Emergency Reporting website.

Emergency Reporting at FDIC

2011-03-21T14:51:00.001-07:00

Come by and say hello at FDIC this Thursday, Friday or Saturday at booth #3250. We will be there meeting with prospective customers from all over the country (world for that matter) and helping customers better utilize the system.
FDIC is the largest fire training conference in the world-- here is the info they have on file about Emergency Reporting-- read more

2011-03-09T14:42:00.000-08:00

Emergency Reporting is growing its operations and has two new positions open: Customer Support Technician and IT Technician. Check out the descriptions at the ER website.

Emergency Reporting and Washington Fire Chiefs (WFC) announce new NFIRS Program

2011-03-01T16:57:00.000-08:00

The Washington Fire Chiefs (WFC) and Emergency Reporting announce a partnership for new NFIRS data collection and reporting services for Washington State starting July 1, 2011.

The partnership replaces the work historically performed by the Washington State Fire Marshall’s office, which recently announced the removal of the NFIRS program due to state budget cuts.

According to WFC Executive Director Mike Brown, “the partnership with Emergency Reporting ensures NFIRS data collection and reporting service will continue in our state. Brown states, “NFIRS data is essential for the management of personnel, fire prevention measures, risk assessment, public safety trends analysis, general budgeting and other key functions of the fire service.”

“There is a growing trend for public agencies to utilize cloud-computing tools for data collection and reporting purposes, says Dave Adams, president of Emergency Reporting. The new NFIRS program delivers the first response community with real-time access to data, powerful reporting tools and data integration with other tools essential for daily operations.”

Here’s how the Washington NFIRS system will work: For agencies currently using Emergency Reporting services it will remain business as usual including the annual report, except the NFIRS data will reside within the system and not be sent to the Fire Marshal’s Office. For agencies currently not using Emergency Reporting services, the process is for them to electronically send NFIRS data to Emergency Reporting.

There is no cost to the agency to submit data to the NFIRS system; however, a monthly service fee will apply if the agency utilizes any of the records management packages offered by Emergency Reporting.

For more information about the NFIRS solution, please contact the WFC or Emergency Reporting.

Seeking Software Developer

2010-12-14T09:07:00.000-08:00

Emergency Reporting is looking for a full time software developer to work at our Bellingham, Washington location. This software developer would work as part of a growing team which is responsible for the development and maintenance of the Emergency Reporting system. This position includes a wide range of benefits including vacation, medical insurance (partially paid), IRA with company match, overtime compensation, flexible hours, and a casual work environment.
Emergency Reporting was founded in 2003 on the idea a 100% web-based fire, EMS and risk assessment reporting system would be perfect for first response agencies. The system now supports fire rescue, EMS agencies, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, oil refineries, hospitals, CDC, NASA, ambulance companies and other first response agencies world-wide.
Responsibilities:
A mix of new development and maintaining existing code as directed by the CTO.
Troubleshoot software related issues.
Work with the business to develop new solutions.
Keep up-to-date on new technologies.
Perform other tasks as assigned.
Qualifications:
Solid background in software development.
SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008 experience or other equivalent experience.
Experience programming web applications in ASP, PHP, or similar technologies.
Strong HTML, JavaScript and CSS skills.
Goals and results oriented, with a passion for excellence.
Strong team player and does not have an "it's not my job" mentality.
Working knowledge software source control management system (SVN, CVS, SourceSafe, others).
The ability to work with a positive attitude.
Ability to prioritize projects and work alone or with a team.
Effective written and verbal communication skills.
Is organized and detail-oriented – able to execute pre-defined tasks on a day-to-day basis and meet deadlines.
Ability to learn on individual basis, always looking to improve personal knowledge base.
Nice to have, but not required:
Some C# and .NET experience, you will need to know just enough to do some maintenance on existing code, and to remove obsolete .NET code from the system as it gets replaced.
Knowledge or experience with fire departments or EMS agencies.
To Apply:
Include a cover letter with details on the following:
Any fire or EMS service background.
Details on how you meet the qualifications outlined above. Your involvement in recent software or website development projects.
Send your resume and cover letter to one of the following locations:
Email: Jobs@EmergencyReporting.com
Fax: 360-676-7218
For more information on Emergency Reporting, please visit our website at: http://EmergencyReporting.com

Emergency Reporting System Upload This Week

2010-12-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

This week Emergency Reporting released a system upload on Wednesday. This upload included system enhancements and two major feature enhancements, including new narrative/files pages and the new online help system.

The first change is on the incident and patient narrative pages. A number of changes have been made to make this page more usable and easier to understand. The files section of the narrative pages has been split out into a page of its own, in order to accommodate better management of attached images and documents. The files page, now includes a bulk upload feature where you can select multiple images to upload at the same time. The narrative pages now have a view mode, with an edit button which has been added to prevent the accidental deletion, or accidental editing of a narrative as people click through to review the narrative before the incident has been locked. There is also a new section on the narrative pages to link through to other narratives associated with the incident to help reduce possible confusion between the patient and exposure level narratives.

The new online help system involved adding a new help link to every page of the system. All of the help has not yet been written, and will continue to be added over the next several weeks to months. This help system logs what pages people need the most help with, and logs what terms or topics people are searching on. The purpose of logging this information is to allow us to prioritize adding help for the pages that need it the most, and for the terms that people are searching on the most. We can also use this logging over time to assess which pages in the system may need to be improved or made more intuitive. In the near future you will see many new help pages being added as they are completed.

These new features are part of the Emergency Reporting commitment to continually improve our system.

Emergency Reporting Adds A New Software Tester, Starting November 3, 2010

2010-11-02T09:21:00.001-07:00

Emergency Reporting announced the appointment of a Steven Mellor as a new software tester to the Emergency Reporting team starting November 3rd 2010.

Mellor will be involved in the development process and testing the next wave of additional features for the Emergency Reporting system and will report to Steve Stedman, the company's Chief Technical Officer. His responsibilities will also include the testing and verification of every system update that Emergency Reporting releases.

Mellor joins the Emergency Reporting team with 15 years of experience in software testing. His skills and background will add to the Emergency Reporting team to help improve our systems, and add to the Emergency Reporting commitment to a high quality product for our customers.

Help Wanted - Support Technician

2010-09-30T11:10:00.001-07:00

Emergency Reporting pioneered the development of a centralized web-based NFIRS, NEMSIS and risk assessment reporting and records management system. The solution supports fire rescue, EMS agencies, Navy, Marines, Army, nuclear power facilities, airports, ambulance services, hospitals, oil refineries, and multi-agency districts internationally. The Customer Support Tech’s primary responsibility is conducting the initial post-sale training and account configuration. Secondary duties include providing first-level technical support to Emergency Reporting’s customers.

Requires the following skills:
• Must demonstrate exceptional telephone communication skills.
• Must be able to effectively communicate with the customers.
• Must be proficient with computers and Internet usage.
• Must be able to communicate with other team members.
• Must be self directed and be able to work without constant supervision.
• Must be a thorough worker and produce good quality work.

Bonus Skills:
• Web / Internet support
• Training background
• Firefighting / EMS background
• Reporting Services experience

Compensation: $13-$14 DOE to start, with review after 60 days.

Attractive work environment includes:
• Flexible hours; family friendly policy
• Paid holidays
• Sick and vacation time
• Paid medical / dental / vision benefits with company contribution towards dependents
• Simple IRA with company matching contribution
• Casual work environment

Considerations:
• This is an entry-level / tier-1 position.
• Product training will be provided.
• This position requires onsite attendance; telecommuters need not apply.
• Fast paced work environment demands the successful candidate must work well with deadlines and schedules.
• No travel required
• No relocation expenses will be provided.

Resumes due by October 10, 2010.
To apply, email your resume to jobs@EmergencyReporting.com.

Help Wanted - Software Systems Tester

2010-09-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting is looking for a full time software and systems tester to work in the office at our Bellingham Washington location. This tester would work with a team of developers to test the Emergency Reporting Fire and EMS records management system. This position includes a wide range of benefits including vacation, medical insurance, IRA with company match, overtime compensation, flexible hours, and a casual work environment.

Emergency Reporting was founded in 2003 on the idea a 100% web-based fire, EMS and risk assessment reporting system would be perfect for fire rescue agencies. The system now supports fire rescue, EMS agencies, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, oil refineries, hospitals, NASA, ambulance companies and other first response agencies world-wide.

Responsibilities:
• Performing automated and manual system tests.
• Test system / software prior to release.
• Confirm that bugs have been fixed after release.
• Reproduce problems as reported by customers.
• Writing good, clear, complete bug reports by providing steps to reproduce problems.
• Communicating effectively with the development team to convey issues or concerns.

Qualifications:
• A strong passion for quality and solid experience in software testing including knowledge of general testing procedures and methodologies.
• Goals and results oriented, with a passion for excellence.
• The ability to work with a positive attitude under pressure.
• Excellent technical and working knowledge of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari web browsers.
• Must be able to work at a keyboard in a lab environment.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills to report actions taking place in the system, issues found etc which could impact project goals and dates.
• Is organized and detail-oriented – able to execute pre-defined tasks on a day-to-day basis and meet deadlines.
• Demonstrates initiative and drive necessary to report and resolve quality issues efficiently.
• Ability to learn on individual basis, always looking to improve personal knowledge base.

Nice to have, but not required:
• Knowledge or experience with fire departments or EMS agencies.

To Apply:
• Include a cover letter with details on the following:
o Any fire or EMS service background.
o Any previous testing experience.
• Email: Jobs@EmergencyReporting.com

Resumes due by October 10th, 2010.

For more information about Emergency Reporting, please visit http://www.emergencyreporting.com.

Fort Rucker signs on with Emergency Reporting

2010-09-29T11:27:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Fort Rucker for signing on with our Fire/EMS services!

Ft. Rucker is the largest helicopter training installation in the world. As the United States Army Aviation Center of Excellence(USAACE) and the home of the Aviation branch, Fort Rucker is charged with producing aviation Soldiers for the world’s premier aviation force.

System Upload - New Feature Added

2010-09-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

Today Emergency Reporting released a new feature to the system which helps with a quicker setup of new customers, and makes use of some of the best practices that our customers employ.

The Emergency Reporting System extensively uses default codes to help organize and categorize user supplied data, some examples of these are ranks, stations to daily roster codes, occupancy roof materials, fire protection system, and many more. Based on an individual departments needs, you can quickly pre-fill your account with the best practices default codes.

The new feature displays a listing category, the number of codes are currently in your account out of the total best practices. From there you can quickly populate your account with these values. This best practices feature can be used by new customers with no data in their account, or by existing customers who may have some data already configured.

This feature should save hours of configuration time and allow new customers to start using the system much quicker than ever before.

When you combine this feature with the ability for Emergency Reporting to import a customers NFIRS data, you can be up and running with the Emergency Reporting system with minimal configuration time.

Every agency using the Emergency Reporting system has one or more users with administrative access; those users will have a new option on the administration page which gives them access to the default codes page. From there they will be shown the following screen where they can pick and choose the codes that they wish to add.

For insight into Emergency Reporting, including product and services news, events and tidbits on our first response community network, please follow us on Facebook.

Emergency Reporting Establishes Strategic Partnership with Spillman Technologies, Inc.

2010-09-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

“The Spillman / Emergency Reporting CAD/RMS solution provides unprecedented options for agencies and increases both companies competitiveness in the first-response marketplace,” says Dave Adams, President of Emergency Reporting. Adams explains that users will be able to complete NFIRS fire and NEMSIS EMS reports more efficiently, transfer data from CAD to the RMS in real-time, and manage daily operations such as, training, scheduling, and inspections from most internet browsers.”

Lance Clark, President & CEO of Spillman Technologies expressed excitement about the partnership and believes it will, “enhance our fire product offering by giving customers proven, industry-leading fire and EMS technologies.”

The Spillman / Emergency Reporting interface is developed and now ready for agencies. To learn more about Emergency Reporting, visit www.emergencyreporting.com.

Emergency Reporting System Upload Today

2010-09-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

Today at 9:00 am (PDT) Emergency Reporting performed a system upload. This system upload contained over 50 bug fixes and feature enhancements. This upload is part of the ongoing commitment from Emergency Reporting to provide a quality product to our customers.

19 New Reports Added To The Emergency Reporting System

2010-09-03T14:16:00.001-07:00

In the last two weeks, Emergency Reporting has added 19 new reports to the Emergency Reporting System.

12 were added last week, and 7 were added this week.

001307 - Average Response Time per Response Mode per Apparatus per Shift per Station for Date Range (19524)

001297 - Personnel Hours for Incidents for Personnel for Date Range (Not Payroll Related) (19848)

001298 - Completed Inspections per Zone vs Inspectors for Date Range (19445)

001330 - Occupancies with Prefire Plan (19893)

001329 - Occupancies with NO Prefire Plan (19893)

001328 - Transferred Patient Count per Destination Type for Date Range (18374)

001327 - Patient Count per Patient Disposition per Agency for Date Range (18375)

001321 - Apparatus Per Station (case 19550)

001303 - Occupancy List with Contacts for Occupancies with Complete Inspections for Inspection Type for Date Range (case 19078)

001322 - Full Occupancy List for Agency with OVAP. This is a VISION report, only available for VISION customers. (case 18707)

001293 - Like DOC ID 526, but for Equipment Value Range (case 19329)

001304 - Incident Response Time Details Modifications (case 19770)

001294 - Events per Personnel per Event Type for Date Range (case 19311)

001305 - Incident Count per Zone for Apparatus for Date Range (case 19691)

001295 - All Classes and Certifications per Personnel for Division (case 19079)

001323 - Responding Personnel per Apparatus per Incident for Date Range (case 18331)

001306 - Incident Count with Man-Hours per Zone for Date Range (case 19380)

001324 - Detailed Losses For Date Range (case 19077)

001296 - Station, Zone and Population Density per Incident for Date Range (case 19846)

Emergency Reporting now exporting EMS data in Utah

2010-07-21T19:55:00.001-07:00

Emergency Reporting is now exporting EMS data to the State of Utah’s POLARIS system. Now a single report can meet both NFIRS and NEMSIS requirement at the same time for our fire/EMS clients in Utah!

Saratoga Springs has signed on with the Fire Package

2010-07-21T10:42:00.000-07:00

Thanks go to the Saratoga Springs Fire Department for signing on with us for the Fire Package!

Welcome Peterson Air Foce Base

2010-07-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

Peterson Air Force Base is coming aboard to use Emergency Reporting's VISION risk assessment services. Welcome!

Welcome aboard Corinth-Shiloh VFD

2010-07-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

Spcial thanks and welcome aboard to the Corinth-Shiloh VFD! We're glad you chose our fire reporting services. This is the main station located on Old Clemson Hwy in Seneca, SC.

System upgrade-- zero downtime and more!

2010-07-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting is pleased to have completed a zero downtime system upgrade at 09:00 PST (16:00 GMT) on 7/14/2010. The upgrade included improving the Support section, and expanding the Incidents, Administration, Occupancy and Reports modules.

The highlight of the upgrade is the work done in the Reports module, which now has more features for improving the users' real-time secure access to important reports and data from anywhere online. The other improvements are posted in an update release in the Support section.

Request for Google to choose Bellingham, WA (corporate office location)

2010-07-16T14:29:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting is hopeful Google selects Bellingham, WA as the recipient community--- our hometown is great community of wonderful folks who will benefit greatly from faster communications. We're located between the Cascade mountains and San Juan Islands, Vancouver BC and Seattle WA-- We also know it will help us advance first response reporting and records management services as well!

Emergency Reporting has named Darrell McCarroll as Director of Customer Services

2010-07-16T14:21:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting has named Darrell McCarroll as Director of Customer Services.

Darrell has extensive management experience providing technical team leadership, project management and information technology support for both small and large organizations. Most recently, McCarroll was a Technical Organization Manager position responsible for supporting over 75,000 users located at 1,800 sites across 41 states in a 24 x 7 x 365 environment.

“Darrell will fit in very well at Emergency Reporting because of his valuable and vast technical management expertise combined with a genuine world-class customer service attitude of helping users,” says Adrian Mintz, Chief Operations Officer for Emergency Reporting.

Emergency Reporting is having fun this summer by asking clients world-wide to send us a video about the impact we're making on your agency. Perhaps it's the web-based access that allows you to access the account from home or the road, or some of the features. Let us know. Videos should go to info@emergencyreporting.com

2010-07-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting has been selected by the Fresno Fire Department to provide web-based fire records management services. The services will include managing their occupancy records management for property inspections, complete with a permitting component, reporting, invoicing, calendar, daybook and administration functions.

Emergency Reporting was the hands-down choice for the FFD following their research for options.

Coast to coast today

2010-06-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting personnel are on scene showing the reporting and records management system at the South Carolina Fire-Rescue Conference in Myrtle Beach and the Fire Conference and School in Wenatchee, Washington.

The shows provide us with a great way to stay in contact with customers and show prospects the benefits of our web-based system, especially compared to the costs and hassle of installed fire software.

Photo of Lee Kleve, VP Sales demonstrating system at training conference

Emergency Reporting Reports Upgrade

2010-06-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting completed a reports upgrade at 09:00 PST (16:00 GMT) on 6/2/2010. There was zero downtime associated with this upgrade. This was a reports only upgrade, containing more than 30 new reports or improvements to current reports.

New Hydrants Module Rollout is Complete

2010-05-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

The new hydrants module is complete. As of today, all customers have been migrated over to use the new module. After several months of development work, testing, and final cleanup, the new hydrants module is now completely released, and is available to all Emergency Reporting customers who have purchased a package which includes the hydrants module.

With the Emergency Reporting system being a cloud based solution where you don't have any server products installed at your local agency, we can provide upgrades like this to all of our customers without having to install any software locally. This allows firefighters, paramedics and first responders to focus their time on helping people, rather than doing IT work.

Some of the new features available in the new hydrants module are:
• Complete rewrite
• Multi-hydrant flow tests
• Print Pages to PDF, including the ability to print all hydrants, work orders or flow tests to a single pdf, including an index.
• Quick add of new Zones, Districts, Types, Ports, Manufacturers, etc… which does not require pre-configuration.
• CSV download for hydrants, flow tests, and work orders
• Bulk operations (Print Hydrants, Print Flow Tests, Print Work Orders, Create Work Order, Archive, Complete Work Order, Delete Work Order).
• Image Gallery for Hydrants, work orders, and flow tests. Allows for multiple images, or other file types to be uploaded and attached to a hydrant, work order, or flow test. Includes a speedy bulk file upload system.
• Scheduling of hydrant maintenance and maintenance intervals.
• CSV Import of Hydrants, and Flow tests.
• 4 security levels (None, Read-Only, Limited, Full)
• Reports page in hydrants module linking directly to reports.
• New Daybook integration for Hydrants.
• Grid sorting, advanced search, and paging that works, and is fast.
• And 14 new hydrant reports in the reports module, including Interagency Hydrant Reports.

My favorite part of the new Hydrants module is the abilty to do bulk processing and update many hydrants or work orders in one step, saving you time.

Zero Downtime Maintenance Upgrade

2010-05-18T09:13:00.000-07:00

Today at 9:00am (Pacific Time) Emergency Reporting performed a system maintenance upgrade. This upgrade included fixes for over 20 bugs and several small enhancements.

A big part of this upload is the final round of bug fixing and features in the new hydrants module, which has been made available to some customers already, and will be made available by the end of the week to all customers who have been using the original hydrants module.

These zero downtime maintenance upgrades allow Emergency Reporting to provide our customers with the most up to date version of our system without requiring any local agency IT maintenance, or hassles.

This is the seventh maintenance upgrade so far for 2010, and is part of the Emergency Reporting commitment to provide an oustanding product to our customers.

New Emergency Hydrants Module – Currently being rolled out.

2010-05-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

Over this week and last week, all customers who were using the existing hydrants module, are being upgrade to the latest Emergency Reporting hydrants module. There is no additional charge for customers over the previous hydrant module, as this is a standard maintenance upgrade.

If your account has not yet been updated, it will be updated in the next few days. The screen shot below is an example of the new hydrants module.

The Emergency Reporting development team has implemented a new hydrants module with almost every hydrant related enhancement that we have received over the last 2 years implemented.

For customers who are using the existing hydrants module, we have a migration process so that none of your existing hydrant data would be lost. All of your hydrant, and flow test data will be migrated into the new hydrants module.

Some of the new features available in the new hydrants module are:
• Complete rewrite
• Multi-hydrant flow tests
• Print Pages to PDF, including the ability to print all hydrants, work orders or flow tests to a single pdf, including an index.
• Quick add of new Zones, Districts, Types, Ports, Manufacturers, etc… which doesn’t require pre-configuration.
• CSV download for hydrants, flow tests, and work orders
• Bulk operations (Print Hydrants, Print Flow Tests, Print Work Orders, Create Work Order, Archive, Complete Work Order, Delete Work Order).
• Image Gallery for Hydrants, work orders, and flow tests. Allows for multiple images, or other file types to be uploaded and attached to a hydrant, work order, or flow test. Includes a speedy bulk file upload system.
• Scheduling of hydrant maintenance and maintenance intervals.
• CSV Import of Hydrants, and Flow tests.
• 4 security levels (None, Read-Only, Limited, Full)
• Reports page in hydrants module linking directly to reports.
• New Daybook integration for Hydrants.
• Grid sorting, advanced search, and paging that works, and is fast.
• And 14 new hydrant reports in the reports module, including Interagency Hydrant Reports.

Hose Testing

2010-04-22T11:39:00.000-07:00

As the Chief Technology Officer for Emergency Reporting, it is my job to keep up to date with technology as it relates to the software and hardware in the Emergency Reporting system. It is also my job to keep up on technology in the fire service that would relate to the Emergency Reporting system.

Today the local fire department, where I am a volunteer, was doing hose testing. I volunteered to help out since I had never been involved with hose testing before. So I picked up the engine at our 2nd station, and drove it down to our main station where the hose testing company was ready to pull all the hoses off the engine, and hook the up to their testing machine.

The testing machine consisted of a large trailer with room to lay out all the hoses, and a manifold and pump operation which was all hooked up to a hydrant. The testing process involved inspecting the hoses, and pressurizing the hoses to their specific test pressure (250psi or 400psi in our case), and seeing if there were any issues with bursting, leaks or other issues.

About an hour and a half after arriving, the hose testing crew loaded all of the hoses back on to the engine for me, and I was off to return the engine to the other station, knowing that our hoses would safe and ready to use on our next fire.

New Hardware at the Emergency Reporting Data Center

2010-04-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

Today, Emergency Reporting had a hardware upgrade at our data center to add a new pair of redundant load balancers. We were not satisfied with the previous load balancer hardware, and made this upgrade to provide a higher level of availability to our customers.

First, what is a load balancer, and secondly, why does this matter to our customers.

A load balancer is a system that makes a pool of multiple servers appear as one server on the network. So for the multiple servers that we have in the load balanced pool, it appears the user as a single website, for instance secure.EmergencyReporting.com or www.EmergencyReporting.com.

Why does this matter to the customers. Having multiple servers that appear to run as a single server allows EmergencyReporting to provide a higher level of availability to our customers. For instance, if we only had one server, that would be a single point of failure that would cause downtime every time there was a hardware failure, or every time the computer needed to be rebooted, or taken out of service for maintenance.

Another advantage of load balancers is that it allows EmergencyReporting to add additional server hardware as our customer base grows. This allows us to add more customers without negatively impacting the performance of the existing customers.

Emergency Reporting has had load balancers for several years, allowing a higher level of availability, but these new load balancers work as a redundant pair so that even if a load balancer needs to reboot, or fails for some reason, the other one immediately takes over with less than 1 second of traffic interruption.

This investment in improved hardware will allow to provide a higher level of availability as well as a provide us with a foundation that EmergencyReporting can use to grow over the next several years.

Zero Downtime System Update Today

2010-03-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Today at 10:00am Emergency Reporting performed a no downtime system upload. This upload included over 20 bug fixes, and some new features.

One of the new features that was included in this upload was the sharing of occupancy inspection forms between friend agencies.

The upload was performed while the system continued to run with zero dowtime.

Emergency Reporting Reports Update

2010-03-11T07:46:00.000-08:00

As part of our ongoing effort to provide customers quality support for their fire and EMS records management needs, Emergency Reporting has improved some of the existing reports. These report improvements were made available today, and are outlined below:

Reports
• Report 1150 - Roster Information by Shift by Personnel for Year (Landscape). A bug in the sorting was fixed. All rosters now sort by Start Date, rather than by roster name.
• Report 1134 - Incident Count per Location Type per Zone per Address for DateRange. Changed so that the report will show all reviewed incidents regardless if a zone is set or not.
• Report 678 - Average Turnout Time (Dispatch to Enroute) for Agency for DateRange. Changing times from decimal minutes to minutes:seconds.
• Report 680 - Average Turnout Time (Dispatch to Enroute) for Agency for Year. Changing times from decimal minutes to minutes:seconds.
• Report 681 - Average Turnout Time (Dispatch to Enroute) per Apparatus for DateRange. Changing times from decimal minutes to minutes:seconds.
• Report 683 - Average Turnout Time (Dispatch to Enroute) per Apparatus for Year. Changing times from decimal minutes to minutes:seconds.
• Report 684 - Average Turnout Time (Dispatch to Enroute) per Station for DateRange. Changing times from decimal minutes to minutes:seconds.
• Report 686 - Average Turnout Time (Dispatch to Enroute) per Station for Year. Changing times from decimal minutes to minutes:seconds.
• Report 954 - Daily Log Items for Activity Code for DateRange. Adding 'Duration' column to Report 954. Reformatting, and font size changes to better utilize page width.
• Report 835 - System Access per Active Personnel. Fixed the training column to correctly report training module access levels.
• Report 037 - Average Response Time For Agency For Year. Fixed error in average response time calculations.
• Report 061 - Average Response Time Per Station For Year. Fixed error in average response time calculations.
• Report 861 - Incomplete Incidents per Daily Roster Apparatus Assignments for Date Range. Updated report to use a new database field.
• Report 862 - Incomplete Incidents per Daily Roster Apparatus Assignments for Year. Updated report to use a new database field.

Emergency Reporting System Upload

2010-03-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

At NOON (PST) today, Emergency Reporting performed a system upload, which included over 50 bug fixes, performance enhancements, and small features.

One of the small new features is that there is now a direct link from daybook to incidents that are displayed on the daybook daily log.

Caught on tape: firefighters close call in Spartanburg County, SC

2010-02-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

SPARTANBURG COUNTY, S.C. -- Croft firefighters are praising their protective gear after a close call earlier this week.

The department responded to a vehicle fire at approximately 5 p.m. on Feb. 3 when the pickup truck exploded on two firefighters, WCBD-TV reported.

The explosion was caused by the magnesium used in the production of most vehicles, but such explosions are rarely this large, according to the report. Because the firefighters were their face masks and breathing apparatus, Fire Chief Lewis Hayes says they were able to spare themselves are more serious injuries. See video

Emergency Reporting – Moving to a new datacenter

2010-02-03T15:35:00.000-08:00

Emergency Reporting moved its web-based fire, EMS and risk assessment reporting and records management system to a new data center February 3 at 10:00 A.M. Pacific Time. The move represents a major investment for the company toward delivering improved services for the first response industry world-wide.

As part of this move we upgraded to the latest version of operating system, and databases, added new load balancers, and new improved firewalls. What this means to the customers is that our system is more secure, and more redundant.

We also upgraded almost all of our servers, and networking hardware. As computers age, and as parts wear out, the likelihood of failure increases. By upgrading to newer hardware we have reduced the chances of a failure or outage that could be caused by hardware failure. We have also increased the speed and capacity of our system by moving to new hardware. All of the systems that we are currently running in the datacenter, with the exception of a backup server, are either new or less than 1 year old.

The entire downtime for the move was 6 minutes 13 seconds. There was significant effort by the Emergency Reporting team to keep this downtime to a minimum in order to not impact our customers. There were many cheaper and faster ways of making this move, but they would have had more of a negative impact on the customers using the system.

The move to a new datacenter had no problems; the main thing that customers will notice is that the system runs a bit faster due to the upgraded hardware, network and datacenter. Official media release

Haiti in crisis

2010-01-13T13:22:00.000-08:00

Emergency Reporting provides powerful reporting and records management services world-wide to men and women dedicated to helping others and protecting property.

We hope for the best for the people of Haiti living under horrific conditions, and give those responding our best!

Firefighters lead children to safety

2010-01-08T12:33:00.000-08:00

A fire roared through a spacious, 2½-story house late Thursday afternoon, briefly trapping two children surrounded by flames on the first floor who were led to safety by volunteer firefighters. Read this encounter and be encouraged by the work of fellow fire fighters. Full story

Future of the operating system is cloudy

2010-01-04T09:23:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's Windows 7 desktop operating system is barely on retail shelves as the battle wages for the control of personal computing. And this time the battle is noting to do with the desktop.

The battle is for control via cloud computing. We've delivered fire and EMS reporting and records management this way now for seven years this month. We're excited to see the likes of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Salesforce investing billions toward online supremacy because it improves the platform and service for all of us.... full story

Worst is yet to come for county budgets, survey says

2009-12-30T10:50:00.000-08:00

"The worst is yet to come for county budgets," according to a recent poll conducted by the National Association of Counties (NACo). Many of the respondents in government say 2010 will be "still harder yet" and cuts will continue.

What does this mean for fire departments and EMS agencies? What about reporting and records management procedures vital to funding, planning and justification? I'm convinced the increase of calls Emergency Reporting is receiving for state wide and county level reporting solutions will continue to increase, especially as administrators scrutinize all of the costs associated with maintaining installed and locally operated fire software. There are many cost effective benefits with a web-based system and the tough economy will force many to realize, if not at least consider, these benefits in 2010.

The mentioned research by the NACo and article make an interesting read. Full story

How to Buy Fire Records Management Products

2009-11-17T13:40:00.000-08:00

"How to Buy Fire Records Management Products" as recommend post by Brian Ward writing for FireServiceSLT.com
I ran across this article by Brian Ward on Firerescue1.com in which he summarizes the process quite well. There is no mention of Emergency Reporting, nor are we affiliated with Brian in any way. See story.

SQL Connections 2009: A week of SQL Server classes

2009-11-13T09:57:00.000-08:00

This week I have been at the SQL Connections conference in Las Vegas. With 7 to 9 hours of classes and presentations every day, all on Microsoft SQL Server. The classes included the Next Generation of SQL Server, Distributed Applications with Service Broker, Building High Availability Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Virtualization, Installation and Migration Strategies, Logging and Recovery, Minimally Logged Operations, Building the Right Backup Strategy, Securing and Hardening a SQL Server, iPhonify your Web App, Memory, Analyzing with SQL Trace and RML utilities, Sparse Columns, Structures, Storage and Speed, and Indexing for Performance. It has been a very busy week.

So what does this mean to the Emergency Reporting customer? As you read the list above, there are many terms that you might not be familiar with. The point here is that as an Emergency Reporting customer, you don’t have to be familiar with any of this since we handle it all for you.
Imagine if you were responsible for hosting the database at your site, you would need to know about many or all of the topics that I have studied this week, and would have to send your IT person to a conference like this. At Emergency Reporting we host all of the systems and databases so that you don’t have to. This means a tremendous savings in the total cost of ownership (TCO) of your reporting system.

So whether your agency does ALS transport, wildland firefighting, a rural volunteer agency, a 50 or more station metro agency, or a specialty agency like firefighting at an oil refinery, your time is better spent training for the skills you need to do your job and stay safe. Let us do to training on the IT side so that you don’t have to.

Brainstorming 2010

2009-11-09T15:24:00.000-08:00

Photo shows Dan Bess, Eastern Region Sales; Steve Stedman, CTO; Scott Newton, Director Customer Support discussing new services.
Emergency Reporting successfully finished up the first of a series of planning sessions for 2010 new products and services. It's being called successful because many good ideas from our customers and employees were discussed with the top ideas being presented in mini-product launch presentations. Most importantly, ownership has obtained high-impact deliverables that are supported by enthusiastic technical and sales teams.

Jay Gunsauls, Training Director, was the facilitator and he did a fantastic job keeping us on task. His 40 years in the fire service has taught him well how to keep discussions on course and within a time schedule.

I can also testify the new products and services our customers will see from Emergency Reporting will make a positive impact on the way their data is captured and utilized! Stay tuned for more as details become available.

What's the Difference Between a Filing Cabinet and a Firefighter?

2009-10-26T22:24:00.000-07:00

Both can assimilate and store an incredible amount of information.... but the information in a filing cabinet is just INFORMATION.

A firefighter assimilates information through training and experience and uses stored information to weigh options, evaluate conditions and make decisions.

Actions are dependent on a firefighters ability to retrieve, sort and filter information very quickly and he/she must rely on the information's validity and accuracy.

So how does this question relate to information management?

Many fire service database programs are filing cabinets. They are a repository of information with limited or no ability to react to conditions. They are like a warehouse of filing cabinets, with data stored in rows, columns, folders, aisles, boxes, in which a person must search and massage bits and pieces into cogent information.

Emergency Reporting provides users with immediate, relevant information based on plans and objectives. With the 'Notifications" feature on the home page, a user can personalize information displayed on login that is relevent to that user's job responsibilities. They do not have to open any page beyond the welcome screen to learn, what has happened, what is planned to happen and what is overdue according to planned events or planned objectives.

Emergency Reporting System Updated

2009-09-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

At 9:15am (PST) today, Emergency Reporting performed a system upload, which included 59 bug fixes, performance enhancements, and small features.

There was no downtime associated with this upload.

New Reports Added In The Last Week

2009-09-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

Recent report requests have focused on partial matches. A good example of a partial match is the new report Doc Id 1185. This report is based on 693 and 695. The two original reports show all apparatus on an EMS call that treated patients but not apparatus that showed and didn't treat patients. The reports didn't have any group, just a listing so it was difficult to quickly identify the apparatus and patients on an incident. Doc Id 1185 uses grouping to show each incident's overall information, all apparatus that showed to the incident, and which apparatus treated patients. If an apparatus arrived on scene but didn't treat patients, no patient data (distinguished by patient age) row is shown.

(Improved Report) EMS Incident Detail
ID:693, 695
Corrected link between apparatus, exposure, and patient.

(New Report)EMS Incident Detail with Patient Info per Date Range (Landscape)
ID: 1185
Shows all apparatus on incident regardless if they have patients.

Emergency Reporting Awarded U.S. Marine Corp Contract

2009-09-08T15:29:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Marine Corps awarded Emergency Reporting a contract for fire, EMS and risk assessment reporting and records management services for installations world-wide.

The services will include web-based NFIRS 5.1 and NEMSIS compliant incident reporting, as well as training, apparatus maintenance, hydrants and other modules required for daily operations.

Emergency Reporting is the only online NEMSIS Gold certified solution with NFIRS and VISION risk assessment records management fully integrated with 17 modules for daily operations. We're excited about this opportunity on many fronts, including the fact it brings great recognition to our services and solidifies our capacity to help small to large sized first response organizations world-wide.

See press release.

New Reports Added In The Last Week

2009-09-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

As part of our ongoing effort to provide customers quality support for their fire and EMS records management needs, Emergency Reporting has added several new reports in the last week, and improved some of the existing reports.

These report improvements are outlined below:
(Improved Report)
ID: 908
Error in report layout removed some rows from results.

(Improved Reports)
ID: 1089, 1090, 1091
Query changed to correctly show inventory items.

(New Reports) New Inter-agency reports
ID: 1170 - 1175

(New Reports) New Hours Spent per Activity Code reports
ID: 1167 - 1169

(New Reports) New Training Activity reports
ID: 1182 – 1184

(New Reports) New Inspection reports
ID: 1177-1179

(New Report) EMS Dept Residency Codes report
ID: 1181

(New Report) Daily log items report
ID: 1159

New Features in Zero Downtime Upload Today

2009-09-01T10:46:00.000-07:00

Today at 10:30am (PDT), Emergency Reporting performed a zero downtime system upload on the web based fire reporting system. The upload included numerous bug fixes and new features.

One new feature that was added is a new personnel list in the administration module with added support for sorting, searching and filtering of people shown in the personnel list. This new feature was added at the request of several customers who needed a quicker way to manage the people on their personnel list. Administrators will be able to see this new page by clicking the link to the Administration module, then clicking the Personnel List link.

New Reports Added In the Last Week

2009-08-26T13:09:00.000-07:00

As part of our ongoing effort to provide customers quality support for their fire and EMS records management needs, Emergency Reporting has added several new reports in the last week, and improved some of the existing reports.

These report improvements are outlined below:
(Improved Report)
ID: 449, 452
Fixed reports using @Day parameter

(New Report) Daily Log Items per Date for Personnel for Date Range
ID: 1159

(New Report) Completed Inspections for Inspector for Date Range
ID: 1177

(New Report) Incomplete Inspections for Inspector for Date Range
ID: 1178

(New Report) Assigned Occupancy list for Inspector
ID: 1179

Two New VISION Reports Added

2009-08-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and today Emergency Reporting has added 2 new VISION reports to the system. The upgrade to include the new VISION reporting category was accomplished with a zero downtime system upgrade. These reports are available to customers using our VISION Risk Assessment product.

The two new reports are located in the VISION report category:

Hazard Statistics for Zone
This report is similar to the current Hazard Statistics report in the Occupancy / VISION area, but it includes the ability to break the result set out by Occupancy Zone, and includes a chart showing the number of complete, and the number of incomplete OVAP scores.

Full Occupancy List for Zone with OVAP
Similar to the existing Full Occupancy List in the Occupancy category, but it includes the ability to break it down by zone, and includes the OVAP scores, with sorting and grouping by the OVAP scores.

Emergency Reporting Adds A New Developer To The Team, Starting August 24th, 2009.

2009-08-13T08:44:00.001-07:00

Bellingham, Wash., Emergency Reporting announced the appointment of a Larry Kaatz as a new software developer to the Emergency Reporting team effective August 24, 2009.

Kaatz will be involved in developing the next wave of additional features for the Emergency Reporting system and will report to Steve Stedman, the company's Chief Technical Officer.

Kaatz joins the Emergency Reporting team with 20 years of experience in software development, and has worked for DIS Corp, Net Manage, Wall Data and Innuity where he contributed to software development of desktop, mobile, and web applications.

“Larry is a very reliable software developer who is always focused on the customer. He will help the Emergency Reporting system grow to further meet the needs of our customers“, said Stedman.

Another Advantage To The Emergency Reporting System

2009-08-12T16:47:00.000-07:00

Faster bug fixing is another advantage to the Emergency Reporting system. Let’s face it, anytime that you use software, issues crop up where the system doesn't do what is expected. In the software development world these are called bugs. Every software program ever written has contained some number of bugs.

What differentiates software products, companies and solutions is how the companies that produce the software deal with the bugs. The internet has allowed us to change the way that bugs are dealt with.

The Evolution of Software Products.
Below is a quick overview of the how software products have evolved to better suit the customers needs.

Installing from disk.
In the days when everyone didn't have internet connections, all software was distributed on floppy disks, or CD's, then eventually on DVD's. You would install the software in your computer, and if you didn't reinstall a newer product, the software would never improve. Every couple years when the software vendor comes out with a new version, you could get the upgrade and install it over the previous version.

Installing over the Internet.
The Internet has introduced the ability to purchase and download software from vendors. You download an install program, run it, and your software is installed and runs the same as if you had installed it from a floppy or CD. The thing that improved here over installing from disk is that vendors could put out faster updates, and more bug fixes. A monthly or quarterly software upgrade was often times available.

Receiving updates over the Internet.
Our operating systems and many products today once they are installed can automatically receive updates over the internet. You see this with the Windows Updates that seem to continuously be providing fixes that cause you to need to reboot your computer, one ore more times. You see this with products like Windows, Microsoft Office, and anti-virus software. Bug fixes or issues can be resolved in a matter of days from when they are reported.

Running software entirely over the Internet like the Emergency Reporting system.
The latest stage of evolution in software is where the software runs completely over the internet. There is no software to install on your computer, there are never any updates to install, you just connect up to the system and you run the latest version of the software. With this solution, updates and bug fixes can be deployed very rapidly if necessary. The Emergency Reporting system is an example of this. At Emergency Reporting, we generally work on larger updates that we apply to the system every few weeks, but when an issue comes up that we need to respond to immediately, we can. If the fix is a straightforward and has a large enough impact, we can get these fixes fixed, tested, and available for customers to use in a matter of hours, and sometimes even less than an hours depending on the complexity of the problem. Another product that runs in a similar solution is Google Documents.

I don't want to set the expectation that all bugs will be fixed and deployed this fast, but when it is a necessity to get a fix out quickly, it can be done.

There was an example of this just today. I customer reported a problem; it was escalated to the development team, fixed, tested, and made available to all customers, all before lunch time.

New Reports Added In The Last Week

2009-08-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

These report improvements are outlined below:

(Improved Report) Daily Roster reports

ID: 462, 881, 908

Added Project Code to report

(Improved Report)

ID: 305, 453, 469, 522, 556, 658, 668, 978, 1083, 1084, 1085, 1106

General speed improvement

(Improved Report) Training Hours reports

ID: 875, 876, 877, 878
Fixed error

(Improved Report) Code Hours for Personnel per Code Category

ID: 946, 947

Fixed code category selection

(New Report) Total Manhours per Activity Code for Date Range

ID: 1147

(New Report) EMS Statistics for Year

ID: 1148

(New Report) Complete Hydrant Flow Tests for Date Range

ID: 1152

(New Report) Incident Details for Cardiac Arrest Outcomes for Date Range

ID: 1153

(Improved Report) Daybook versus Incident Apparatus Personnel Count for Date Range

ID: 1154

Fixed Apparatus name

(New Report) Equipment List per Assigned Personnel

ID: 1155

(New Report) Active Personnel Per Agency per Station

ID: 1160

(New Report) Active Personnel Per Agency per Shift

ID: 1161

(New Report) Incident Count per MapPage

ID: 1163/1164

Inter Agency Reporting

2009-07-31T09:26:00.000-07:00

Today Emergency Reporting has released a new feature to the Emergency Reporting System, Inter-Agency Reports. Inter-Agency reports query data from multiple departments who have chose to share their data with each other. There was zero downtime required for Emergency Reporting to release this new feature.

First off, is this secure? Yes, another agency will not have access to any of your data unless you choose to share that data with them.
This sharing is managed through the Agency Friends section of the Emergency Reporting system administration. You can select which agencies you want to share data with, and you can view the agencies that are sharing data with you.

When you set up an agency to share data with, you can specify which data you want to share as shown below.

Next, what are the reports?
To start with, we have added 2 reports into the system, and plan to add many more.

The first Inter-Agency report that we added is an incident level report, using the reporting feature, navigate to Reports / Incidents and you will see a new report category called "Inter-Agency".

The Incidents Inter-Agency category contains the first Inter-Agency report as shown here.

The second report that has been added is located under the Administration > Personnel > Inter-Agency category as shown here.

Next, Will there be more Inter-Agency Reports?
Yes, we will be providing more Inter-Agency over time, and as appropriate. Not all current reports make sense to use as Inter-Agency reports.

What if I run an Inter-Agency report and only see data from agency?
Check in the Emergency Reporting administration console to confirm that other agencies have chosen to share their data with your agency.

Inter-Agency reports are all part of the Emergency Reporting dedication to continue to expand our reporting system and provide the reports that customers are asking for.

NEMSIS Gold Certification!

2009-07-28T10:56:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting was awarded the NEMSIS Gold Certification from the NEMSIS Technical Assistance Center.

The NEMSIS Gold Certification distinguishes Emergency Reporting as the only web-based software offering NEMSIS (National EMS dataset standard- gold level), NFIRS (National fire dataset standard), VISION (risk assessment) fully integrated with 17 modules for daily operations, such as training, personnel, hydrants, maintenance and more.

We're very excited for the news as it will help secure contracts with agencies requiring the certification and it represents a lot of hard planning and programming work by our technical team.

The NEMSIS Gold Certification also means we've set the standard for online fire, EMS and risk assessment reporting for first responders world-wide.

Emergency Reporting expands sales force

2009-07-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting has hired Dan Bess as a Regional Salesperson for the NE market, expanding the sales force due to increased demand for our fire and EMS reporting software.

We're excited to be expanding during tough economic times. The expansion reflects what we've said all along, online reporting offers significant financial advantages over traditional installed fire software.

Dan brings with him extensive sales and marketing expertise, including national sales experience with a fortune 500 company and other mid-sized companies. There's much to say about his enthusiasm for supporting customers and ideas for growth.
Welcome aboard!

Emergency Reporting System Updated Today

2009-07-28T10:10:00.000-07:00

Today at 10:00am (pacific time), the Emergency Reporting system was updated with the latest code base including many bug fixes, and several enhancements.

The largest enhancement that has been added is the NEMSIS 2.2.1 GOLD export format. We have recently been approved as NEMSIS 2.2.1 GOLD complaint by the NEMSIS TAC team, and we are now able to make this available to the Emergency Reporting customers.

Over the last several months, since January 2009, you may have noticed many new fields being added into our EMS pages. These fields were added in order to support all of that data that NEMSIS requires for the GOLD 2.2.1 certification.

New Reports Added In The Last Week

2009-07-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

These report improvements are outlined below:

(Improved Report) Total Incidents per Personnel for Date Range
ID: 274
Added percentage of calls for each fire fighter and total call count.

(Improved Report) Decreased processing time for report.
ID: 553, 274, 394

(New Report) EMS Statistics for Year
ID: 1148
Displays majority of information needed for the Administration module -> Department Settings -> EMS Agency Settings.

(New Report) Out-of-Service (Alarm to InService) Times per Personnel for Date Range
ID: 1151
Displays hours on call and hours in service for all personnel.

(New Report) Complete Hydrant Flow Tests for Date Range
ID: 1152
Displays information required by the American Water Works Association.

NVFC Mourns Loss of Longtime Board Member Jim Monihan

2009-07-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

(as reported from NVFC News Alert) E. James Monihan, a 32-year member of the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) Board of Directors, passed away on Saturday, July 18. The NVFC is deeply saddened by this loss and sends condolences to his family.

“The NVFC and the entire fire service community have lost a great leader and advocate, and it is with very heavy hearts that we bid him farewell,” said Philip C. Stittleburg, Chairman of the NVFC. “Jim was a true pillar in the fire and medical services at the local, state, and national levels. He will be deeply missed.”

Jim was involved with the NVFC since its beginnings and became the Director from Delaware in 1977. He played an important role in the growth of the organization, serving as NVFC Chairman from 1979 to 1991. Jim sketched the first NVFC logo on a napkin and with that, the NVFC image was born. With the dedication of Jim and the other NVFC Directors, the organization expanded and became a leader in the fire and emergency services community.

“Jim’s dedication to the fire and emergency services community is an inspiration to us all. He was a true leader and gentleman, so let us celebrate his life and accomplishments,” said Heather Schafer, Executive Director of the NVFC.

Jim continued to serve as a member of the NVFC’s Executive Committee as well as Chair of the Legislative Committee. He also represented the NVFC on both the Congressional Fire Services Institute’s (CSFI) National Advisory Committee and a National Fire Protection Association standards committee, and he testified before Congress many times regarding fire service issues on behalf of the NVFC.

Jim first joined the fire service in August 1957. He was originally drawn to the emergency services through the inspiration of his uncle, a volunteer firefighter. Jim was a life member of the Lewes (DE) Fire Department, where he had served as President and Deputy Chief; was a lifetime member of the Cranston Heights Fire Company in Delaware, where he had served as Secretary and Ambulance Captain; was an honorary member of the Bethany Beach Volunteer Fire Company, and was a past president and active member of the Delaware Volunteer Firemen’s Association.

Jim was a vocal advocate and respected voice for the fire and emergency services. His passion for the fire service as well as key issues such as the importance of residential sprinklers earned him the admiration and esteem of all those whom he encountered.

After his retirement from his 43-year career as a hospital executive, Jim continued to act as a consultant to the President of Beebe Medical Center in Lewes, DE, where he supervised construction. He also raised dogs and liked to garden and travel.

Throughout his years in the fire and medical services, Jim received numerous awards and recognitions for his dedication, commitment, and leadership. These awards include CFSI’s Mason Lankford Fire Service Leadership Award (of which he was the first recipient), the Sons of the American Revolution’s Fire Service Medal, the Bowl of Hygeia pharmacy award, Administrator of the Year from the American College of Healthcare Executives, the NVFC Director Award, and President Emeritus for the Lewes Fire Department. He also received the 2007 Robert Tunnell Award for Service to Beebe Medical Center from the Beebe Medical Center Foundation.

Jim leaves behind is his wife, Jan, two children, and two grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are not yet complete.

Scheduled Downtime Today

2009-07-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

Today we had a scheduled downtime at 10:00am PST, for just under 10 minutes. Customers probably wonder... why does Emergency Reporting have scheduled downtime? There is no simple answer that describes every scheduled downtime, sometimes we are deploying code updates, bug fixes, or new features to the site. Other times we are doing routine maintenance to upgrade or replace old hardware.

Today our downtime was to replace all of our internal network switches, and to add an additional redundant network into our infrastructure. These network switches are the core of the Emergency Reporting network, and the backbone of our infrastructure. We were able to replace older network switches with newer and faster hardware.

This was a standard upgrade that should occur every 3 to 4 years in order to reduce the risk of downtime caused by hardware failure.

Overall this 10 minute downtime will give the Emergency Reporting customers a more stable experience with better redundancy over the next several years.

New Reports Added This Week

2009-07-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

As part of our ongoing effort to provide customers quality support for their fire and EMS records management needs, Emergency Reporting has added several new reports this week, and improved some of the existing reports.

These report improvements are outlined below:

(New Report) Incident Count per ALL Actions Taken for Hour Range for Date Range

ID: 1137

This report was similar to an existing report, with additional filtering by time range (days and time).

(New Report) Daily Log Items for Personnel for Date Range

ID: 1136

Similar to report 906 but with the following addition "Hours Spent per Personnel per Activity Code for Date Range".

(New Report) Roster Information by Shift by Personnel for Year (Landscape)

ID: 1150

Similar to report 465, with the addition of shift information.

(New Report) Patient Transfers by Hour for Date Range

ID: 1149

Displays the hour of the day and the number of patient transfers in that hour.

(New Report) Total Man-hours per Activity Code for Date Range

ID: 1147

Includes a total of the man-hours spent during a period in maintenance, training activities or other activities.

(New Report) Certifications Regardless of Status for Personnel

ID: 1146

Added a new report for training certifications.

(Improved Report) Performance Improvements on EMS Transports Detail for Date Range

ID: 977

Previously this report would time out or fail to return results if the time period was longer than a few days. This report now performs much faster than before.

(Improved Report) Assigned to column added to the Incidents for Status Level for Date Range report and Incidents for Status Level for Year.

ID: 869, 870

Each week Emergency Reporting continues to add new reports, and improve existing reports in response to feedback from our customers.

Steve Stedman, CTO, discusses web-based system

2009-06-19T15:07:00.000-07:00

WASCF conference wraps up

2009-05-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting was an exhibitor at the Washington State Association Fire Chiefs conference this week in Spokane, WA.

The conference provided us with the opportunity to have prospects see the system in action and for customers to access their accounts for real-time incident reviews and news.

CFED West - 2009

2009-05-14T16:20:00.001-07:00

Emergency Reporting was an exhibitor at the CFED West Conference this week in Palm Springs, CA. The conference offered sessions in Fire, EMS, Nursing/Med, Disaster/Public Health, and Terrorism. Two very interesting sessions included one on international terrorism and the other was presented by a Commander in the Israel Police Force on the subject of first responders' role in terrorist attacks.

Our fire, EMS and risk assessment services were accessible from our booth and we had the opportunity to meet agencies interested in our packages, as well as a chance to meet face to face with customers.

For more information about the advantages of web-based reporting and records management, please submit a request for trial account.

Thanks to FSTI

2009-05-08T16:21:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting received a plaque from the Fire Services Training Institute in recognition of our sponsorship contributions.

The FSTI addresses the training delivery needs of todays public safety community, including public, volunteer, private non-profit, industrial and tribal fire agencies.

Michael Williams (photo) is the President & Executive Director of FSTI and has done a superior job of uniting and improving public safety through firefighters, EMT's, paramedics, investigators and police officers serving the State of California.

Fire-Rescue Med 2009

2009-05-08T16:03:00.001-07:00

Emergency Reporting was an exhibitor at the 2009 conference May 4-5 in Las Vegas at the Orleans Convention Center.

We enjoy exhibiting at the FRI Med conference, because the audience is an impressive group of experienced first response decision makers. We were accessing the web-based system for fire reports and records management using a laptop and wireless card.

Even though the 2009 attendance number was down considerably from the previous show, nothing beats face-to-face conversations and system demonstrations.

System Upload Today

2009-04-29T11:01:00.000-07:00

Today at 11:00am Pacific time we performed a system upload to the Emergency Reporting Fire and EMS reporting system. The upload was completed with just under 1 minute of website downtime.

You can view what has changed using the support news feature as documented in this blog article.

Help Wanted - Software Systems Tester

2009-04-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting is looking for a part time (up to 20 hours per week) software and systems tester to work in the office at our Bellingham Washington location.

Emergency Reporting was founded in 2003 on the idea a 100% web-based fire, EMS and risk assessment reporting system would be perfect for fire rescue agencies. The system now supports fire rescue, EMS agencies, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, oil refineries, hospitals, CDC, NASA, ambulance companies and other first response agencies world-wide.

Responsibilities:

Performing automated and manual system tests.
Test system / software prior to release.
Confirm that bugs have been fixed after release.
Reproduce problems as reported by customers.
Writing good, clear, complete bug reports by providing steps to reproduce problems.

Qualifications:

Knowledge or experience with fire departments or EMS agencies.
A strong passion for quality and solid experience in software testing including knowledge of general testing procedures and methodologies
Goals and results oriented, with a passion for excellence
The ability to work with a positive attitude under pressure
Excellent technical and working knowledge of Internet Explorer, Firefox and other web browsers.
Must be able to work at a keyboard in a lab environment
Effective written and verbal communication skills to report actions taking place in lab, issues found etc which could impact project goals and dates
Is organized and detail-oriented – able to execute pre-defined tasks on a day-to-day basis and meet deadlines
Demonstrates initiative and drive necessary to report and resolve quality issues efficiently
Ability to learn on individual basis, always looking to improve personal knowledge base

To Apply:

Include a cover letter with details on the following:
Any fire or EMS service background.
Any previous testing experience.
Send your resume and cover letter to one of the following locations:

Email: Jobs@EmergencyReporting.com
Fax: 360-676-7218

FDIC success

2009-04-27T15:58:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting met with customers and many prospects last week at the FDIC (Fire Department Instructors Conference); the training and trade show is the largest in the U.S. and drew over 27,000 fire fighters and others supporting the first response market.

FDIC provided us with invaluable face-to-face time with our customers and gave us a snapshot of their needs and the marketplace in general. As we told our customers, we are committed to improving the system to deliver as much value as possible to all our customers.

For example, the next system upload is planned for later this week and includes over 100 improvements and modifications with no effort to the users. The web-based system allows our users to simply access the system, without installing software or making system improvements.

The thought of asking customers to download patches or make any effort to improve their account on their network is almost laughable, if it were not so expensive in terms of human resource time and/or contractor expense. I'm continually amazed at the requirements and burdens traditional fire software companies continue to put on fire and EMS agencies in order to use their software.

FDIC was a good reminder we are on the right path to grow with your demands for data collection and reporting. Please continue to use the "report a feature" option, as we continue to deliver as much value as possible!

FDIC - booth #1843

2009-04-16T15:52:00.000-07:00

Emergency Reporting will be an exhibitor at the FDIC (Fire Department Instructors Conference) in Indianapolis April 23-25th.

This year is our 7th year of showing Emergency Reporting's fire and EMS reporting system. When we first started in 2003, few knew who we were and 100% web-based reporting was new. Now we're supporting first responders world-wide serving fire-rescue, refineries, NASA, CDC, ambulance companies, nuclear power facilities, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and more.

FDIC is important for hands-on training evolutions, pre-conference workshops, and classroom presentations. But what makes the event extraordinary is the people and energy dedicated to making first response as safe and efficient as possible.

Hope to see you there, stop by booth #1843 and say hello.

100 system improvements made today

2009-04-16T15:28:00.001-07:00

Emergency Reporting is proud to announce we made over 100 system improvements and modifcations today, as a result of customer input and long-term strategic planning.

The system wide improvements include work in the modules for Administration, Incidents, Reports, Maintenance, Payroll, Rosters, Events, Occupancy, and CAD. For example, the Admin module was improved to facilitate and review data exports, personnel, apparatus and destinations.

Emergency Reporting was able to make the modifications within only a few minutes of prescheduled system maintenance time, at no cost or effort to all users. The system features over 2,000 pages of pwerful reporting and records management resource.

If you are using an old fire software program and are curious how useful and cost effective web-based reporting can be, try us out; there's no cost orobligation, just visit our site and complete the DEMO request form and we'll send you a login and password. Fast and easy!

Training Workshop successful

2009-04-12T10:34:00.000-07:00

Customers from Colorado and Wyoming participated in a workshop at the AmeriTeach facility in the Denver Tech area April 7 and 8, 2009. AmeriTeach provided us with a first class classroom with PC's and high speed internet connections that allowed each participant the opportunity to login to their respective account while the instructors, Lee Kleve and Jay Gunsauls presented Emergency Reporting's Best Practices.

Participants ranged from very new to five year customers and the broad representation reinforced the fact that customers helping customers can be a very effective learning experience for all; yes, even the instructors. Each department represented real-world challenges in the area of records management and new discoveries and solutions were possible in this setting.

Emergency Reporting is proud to say that we are a customer-driven company; that our support staff is very attentive and responsive to our customers' needs. Regional workshops such as this are planned across the country.

Web-based, so what?

2009-04-03T14:41:00.000-07:00

I'm hearing more these days from Chiefs and other first response authorities about the value they place toward good data for managing resources, reports, and protecting budgets (what's left of them).

A career/volunteer chief said just today, "we're going with Emergency Reporting over "brand x" because our guys can complete reports from home over the web." The value of working from anywhere other than the "licensed" computer at the station is enormous.

The career agencies get the value of a web-based system, albeit for some different reasons. The chief is no longer forced to pay for tech support and the other often hidden costs of running and maintaining the required hardware / software for "traditional fire software."

The web-based system allows the chief to check in on the department 24/7 from anywhere online. The crew may argue if that's a good thing or not, but the fact is chief is under more pressure than ever for reports and documentation for the management of the department and resources. It helps to have good access to the information necessary to manage.

Emergency Reporting works very hard to provide decision makers with relevant services for gathering and utilizing data via our web applications. If you're looking for fire software or fire and EMS reporting, take a good look at our services via our free demo account.

Training Division overview

2009-04-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

Director of Training Jay Gunsauls will be very busy with training workshops at various departments and training centers across the country. To keep track of training in your area, visit his schedule at Emergency Reporting.

Thanks to Sedro Woolley Fire Department

2009-03-31T21:41:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to the Sedro Woolley Fire Department and Chief Dean Klinger for hosting Emergency Reporting today.

John Mortinson of Thinkatron Media directed the shoot, which features department personnel commenting and utilizing the web-based fire and EMS reporting and records management system in daily operations.

Sedro Woolley FD has used Emergency Reporting services for several years; ER supports 16 agencies in the Skagit County (WA) response area.

New Feature - Patient Current Medications Quick Add

2009-03-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

A new feature was added in today’s upload of the Emergency Reporting Fire Software system. The EMS patient current medications quick-add list. Over time we have had several requests for a faster way to enter the current medications for a patient.

On the patient history page, you can now add medications as quickly as filling out the entries in a grid similar to a spreadsheet. This is formatted similar to Allergies where you can enter and hit return for more. As you fill out each row of the grid, another row becomes available below to enter the next item.

This has been designed to save time on the entering of current medications into the system.

Click the image for a larger view

Vacant Buildings

2009-03-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

There is an excellent article in the March issue of Fire Rescue magazine regarding vacant structures, many of which have become vacant through foreclosure or because of business failures. These structures create unique problems for fire departments and are growing in numbers due to economic conditions.

Considering that built-in fire protection systems may be compromised as part of the building abandonment; how does this change the risk to responders? What is the likelihood that these buildings might become occupied in unanticipated ways; i.e. squatters?

Emergency Reporting's Occupancy module is designed to be customized for local conditions and customer's circumstances. The module can be arranged to track property history from simple fly-by pre-incident plans to complete and detailed inspections, violations and department actions.

The article encourages us to consider developing policies for these buildings and Emergency Reporting suggests the addition of appropriate Action Codes to reflect whatever policy is adopted.

New Features from the Training Workshop

2009-03-17T15:22:00.001-07:00

On Monday at the Emergency Reporting Training Workshop in Bellingham, I had the great opportunity to meet with some of our customers, and to learn more about how they are using the Emergency Reporting records management system.

Two new features suggested by customers were released late yesterday in the Emergency Reporting system.

* Add the serial number into the apparatus - equipment list to distinguish between different equipment with the same names.

* Add another column to the personnel administration section to display their status (inactive or active). Allow sorting to find all active personnel quicker.

These were small changes that hopefully will have a big impact on the customer experience.

With the Emergency Reporting system using the ASP (Application Service Provider) model, this allows us to be able to make changes faster than would be possible if we had to distribute a software product out on disk to all of our customers.

Captain Bob Burton comments from Training Workshop- Bellingham

2009-03-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

Day one of the Emergency Reporting Training Workshop-Bellingham covered a range of topics aimed at helping users maximize the fire and EMS reporting and records management system.

Training Director Jay Gunsauls has 40 years of fire experience and is very competent in data management. His approach today was causal and inviting, hopefully all attendees felt comfortable in bringing forth their key challenges with using the system; the intent of the workshop was to provide "interaction" in order to research key demands for future system modifications.

Chief Bob Burton of the Yakima Fire Department made these comments about the fire software program- see video.

Emergency Reporting - Bob Burton from John Mortensen on Vimeo.

For more information about the system, please contact info@emergencyreporting.com.

System Update Today

2009-03-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today the Emergency Reporting Fire and EMS Records Management System was updated with no downtime. Having multiple web servers in a load balanced environment allows us to upload and upgrade servers one at a time without having to take the entire system down.

Instead of talking about what we changed, instead I would like to show how customers can find out about changes in this update and other updates.

When you are logged in to the Emergency Reporting System, you will see a link at the top right side of the page for "Help & Support". Click that link.

From there you will be shown the support page with a list of Updates & News in the top section.

Clicking on one of those Update & News items will show you the details on what was included in the update.

Take a look. The upload today had more than 30 improvements, bug fixes and features.

New Feature - History Details

2009-03-05T16:11:00.000-08:00

Emergency Reporting added a new feature to our Fire Records Management System today, the history details. This feature is only available to the agency administrators and agency supervisors, but not to personnel who have only submitter access.

This is a new link on the incident exposure view page. The link is in the bottom right of the exposure bar, in the history column. When you click this link you will be taken to a page that lists details on who has viewed this incident or patient, who reviewed the exposure, who authorized the exposure, who unlocked the exposure, and other details.

Happy 40th Seattle Medic One

2009-03-05T14:00:00.001-08:00

Growing up in the Seattle, Washington area makes this story a little extra special; congrats to the Dr. Copass and all the others who make this program a success. See Video.

Review Requested - Whats this?

2009-03-04T14:00:00.000-08:00

In the system update today one of the new features is a check box on the Patient Narrative page. When you see this you may be wondering what it is.

In the NEMSIS 2.2.1 Specification this is referred to as "REVIEW REQUESTED", it is section E23_01, and it is defined as "Indication of whether the form needs review by anyone."

When entering data for any EMS patient, you can flag this patient for review. At a later time, these patients can be found using the search page. By going to the Incident Module, choosing Advanced Search, then clicking the check box next to Review Requested. Then choose search and you will be shown all of the incidents with patients needing review.

Large System Upgrade at Emergency Reporting

2009-03-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

Today Emergency Reporting performed a large system upgrade. The system improvements are substantial, with over 125 individual enhancements, primarily concentrated in the Incident Module / Patients section.

Below is a brief summary list of the general improvements. A detailed list of improvements can be viewed in the Support area of the Emergency Reporting system.

Incident Module

The Patient level navigation was shortened to speed up data entry.
Many fields in the patient area now use a “quick add” method to enter multiple values, such as patient allergies and past medical conditions.
There is a new page for adding vitals, collecting additional elements, and also collecting patient orientation for each vital.
The Patient Narrative page now performs an auto save without refreshing the page. This will make saving the patient narrative more robust.

Administration Module

Medications, Procedures, and Protocols can now be disabled or enabled by agency.
EMS Agency Settings now collects approximately 50 fields related to EMS agency information.
Personnel has a new tab titled "History" that can be used to collect historical certification and employment information.
Apparatus now includes two new tabs, “Crew” and “Usage,” which can be used to collect vehicle usage and staffing information.
Each Station now collects approximately a dozen fields, including address, phone numbers, etc.

Updated hardware for all Emergency Reporting web servers.

2009-03-04T08:31:00.000-08:00

In order to provide high availability systems, Emergency Reporting fire records management system has more than one web server, there are several web servers in what is called a load balanced pool. If one of these web servers needs to reboot, or to apply updates, or just be taken down for maintenance, it can be taken out of the pool of web servers without impacting the customers.

All of the hardware systems in this pool of web servers have been updated to the newer faster servers, the latest server hardware technology. The other servers were not that old, but the hardware has improved dramatically in just 2 years, it makes the upgrade worthwhile.

The new server hardware will allow us to serve our customers better by providing the following:

1. A higher percentage of up time. The newer hardware is under the latest warranties and is less likely to just wear out.

2. Faster response time on the web applications. Pages will be delivered faster and update faster.

3. A greater scalability. With the current hardware, we can add more servers into the load balanced pool without much effort. This allows us to grow our systems faster than our customer base grows.

This is the advantage to the customer of working in the hosted Application Service Provider (ASP) environment we handle the hardware upgrades so that the customer doesn’t have to.

The Emergency Reporting model is here to stay!

2009-02-27T10:21:00.000-08:00

In the mid-1990's the ASP (Application Service Provider) model burst on the technology scene as a way for users to maximize use of a web-application without paying for all of the hardware, software and technical expertise required to maintain the software. Now the term "online business software" is used to describe the service model.

When Emergency Reporting started in January 2003, the model was a "no-brainer" because we could develop and delver fire and EMS reporting and records management to first responders world-wide via the internet-- without requiring first responders to do anything other than logon to their account.

Early on, there was apprehension from some fire and EMS customers to change from traditional "installed, licensed software"; their hesitation has since vanished as they realize all of the benefits of an ASP model. The "early adapters" in first response realized the world was already utilizing the internet for secure activities to support daily operations, reporting and fire records management were no different.

The trend indicates continued growth for online software applications: In 2008, such services netted 6.6 billion in sales; 2011 numbers are expected to hit 11 billion (Source: Gartner).

The first responder industry benefits when Fire Chiefs, EMS Directors and other decision makers are willing to consider "change" from old traditional software in order to invest in more powerful tools for data management. When budgets are tight, web-based tools can return even more value for the dollar invested.

The truth is most first responders need not care how software works or about data management. However, for those tasked with the responsibility, we invite you to watch for exciting new services from Emergency Reporting!

Training Economics 101

2009-02-18T10:19:00.000-08:00

Fire Departments across the United States (and I'd venture to guess departments around the world) share a very common challenge trying to meet all of the regulations, standards, laws and rules related to training members to do their job. The need to assemble Fire and EMS companies in a central location or moving training resources and instructors from station to station; the need to plan station coverage with move-up or overtime companies all add to the problem.

Unplanned events that interrupt training sessions require re-scheduling of these sessions. Off-duty members (scheduled or not) fall through the cracks and have to be accommodated with make-up training sessions. Everyone in the Fire and EMS service would have to be a training officer for some period in their career to really appreciate the difficulties that must be overcome.

Unfortunately many fire service members are skating on the edge of not meeting some element of required continuing education or competency. We like to think that we learn what we need to know through experience, but sadly some of these learning experiences are not always positive. "Lessons learned" and "Lessons re-learned" during emergency operations are usually done under hardship. How many of these lessons are entered in the training log?

Fire and Rescue agencies are finding it more and more difficult to adequately fund the training programs they need. In the current economic environment, it doesn't look like it will be improving any time soon. So we do what we do best; "Innovate".

Improvements in Training technology are now making it possible for us to accomplish a good amount of training in an "Anywhere / Any Time" mode. Opportunities to use internet resources, eLearning, virtual classrooms, on-line workshops are available at considerably less costs than traditional methods of competency-based instruction and testing. Google "Learning Management Systems" or "SCORM" (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) and you will find a plethora of developing opportunities.

Emergency Reporting is committed to helping customers in their training needs, utilizing contemporary and immerging technologies. Drop in a Virtual Thursday session and help us help you improve these learning experiences.

Emergency Reporting Workshops

2009-01-31T11:35:00.000-08:00

Emergency Reporting recently held a workshop for customers at the PST Lab at the Trident Research Center in Charleston, South Carolina. This workshop provided customers with a great opportunity to address specific records management issues in their department.

Workshops for 2009 will be held in Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, Washington, Indiana, California, Arizona, and Nevada; other sites to be named later. See schedule.

The intent of the training workshops is to enhance customer satisfaction and awareness of Emergency Reporting services. In addition to attendees having their own computer workstation, print and electronic information will be provided for future reference. There will also be time for one-on-one time with the trainer. The cost for the workshops is $650 per attendee. (watch for early registration discount offers)

Contact Emergency Reporting Training Division at 866-773-7678 Ext 119 or training@emergencyreporting.com for additional information or to schedule a training event.

Where Did All the Data Go?

2009-01-31T11:11:00.000-08:00

When computers were first introduced to the fire service, we quickly learned two things. If we were doing it poorly on paper, computers helped us do it poorly faster.

The other thing we learned was that the data looked the same when it came out as when it went in; and it was just that, data.

Our early attempts at keeping data on thin floppy disks implied to us that we would use less paper. Erasing liquids required MSDS sheets and we couldn't wait to get rid of the messy stuff. Then the obvious (or should have been) third and fourth drafts began filling up the recycle bins and we had to build larger closets to stock more reams of paper.

So what did we do with this data? We dutifully printed summary reports and put them in metal filing cabinets for safe-keeping. We labelled files with cryptic shorthand (not more than eight characters in length as I recall) and labelled disks with equally questionable logic. We shared data by passing disks around (we affectionately called it the frisbee network).

At no time do I recall any of this data influencing an administrative decision in a timely way. The reports were pondered, we learned to improve their presentation by building graphs and tables for further study. We noticed a lot of data got labelled "misc" or "other" but we weren't deterred from our quest for approval from the higher-ups and bean-counters. We made graphs and tables in COLOR.

Emergency Reporting built what I intended to build when I retired. They simply got there first and as an early customer I realized that data could actually be converted to information and could be measured against standards, rules, regulations and department objectives. What a concept.

Emergency Reporting Training Division was created to provide customers with a better understanding of how to make this conversion from data warehousing to information management. Call us sometime and we'll chat about the various options we have for helping your department make this transition and we are always interested in hearing how our customers have achieved this milestone in their department.

Presidential Inauguration Challenges D.C. Fire and EMS Agencies

2009-01-20T10:44:00.000-08:00

When I thought of the public servants supporting something as big and grandiose as a presidential inauguration, I previously only thought of the police and secret service, because the news tends to focus on the security aspects of such an event. However, since coming to work at Emergency Reporting, I've also wondered about the role that fire and EMS agencies play in such things.

Sure enough, there's a story in this morning's news about how the festivities affected the fire and EMS folks. I don't think there's any sort of incident reporting software that could help with these particular problems, but agencies using our software would certainly have an easier time filing their reports afterwards.

You can read the full story by clicking on this link: Huge crowds mean injuries, EMS headaches

Filling Sand Bags

2009-01-09T09:34:00.001-08:00

As the CTO at Emergency Reporting, my work life typically involves working behind a desk, doing development management, fixing bugs, and working with the developers, and the occasional datacenter project.

Yesterday was a little bit different. Right around lunch time I received a call from my wife and she said that the city of Ferndale (near where I live) was in need of people to help fill sandbags to prevent flooding of the downtown area. I quickly wrapped up what I was doing at work for the day and headed off to help with the filling of sand bags.

I spent most of the afternoon shoveling sand into bags and loading the bags on to pallets which were then transported to the flood areas to be used. There was a great turnout, and I think that we ended up filling about 17 pallets with sandbags. There was a variety of people who turned out to help, City Council Members, Boy Scout and Cub Scout people, Business Owners, and Fire Departments.

I was amazed at the levels of the flood waters, and the amount of work that was involved to help prevent the town from washing away.

The river levels were down when I passed through town today on the way to work, and the downtown Ferndale area was safe. There were however many houses outside of the downtown area that suffered extreme damage.

Six Year Anniversary

2008-12-30T17:05:00.000-08:00

Six years ago Emergency Reporting was established with the conviction first responders would benefit from a 100% web-based reporting and records management system.

With much enthusiasm and a handful of talented people, the company set out to create what would become the largest privately held fire/EMS incident and records management database. The system would grow to support first responders with NFIRS and NEMSIS reporting to records management for hydrants, apparatus, training and much more.

Now there are over 30,000 first responders serving fire rescue, EMS agencies, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Army, nuclear power facilities, airports, ambulance services, hospitals, oil refineries, CDC, NASA, multi-agency districts and more, world-wide 24/7, with access to the system.

We thank our customers, employees, vendors, advisory board and others associated with the success of Emergency Reporting. Fire and EMS reporting has come a long way in the last six years and we plan to advance the cause significantly in 2009!

Sincerely,
Dave Adams, President & Co-founder
Adrian Mintz, Chief Operations Officer & Co-founder

Patch Exchange

2008-12-29T15:22:00.000-08:00

Emergency Reporting is inerested in receiving patches from our customers, so please send your patch and we'll reply with one of ours.

Mail to:
Emergency Reporting
851 Coho Way, Suite 307
Bellingham, WA 98225

NFIRS 2009 Compliant

2008-12-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

The Emergency Reporting fire, EMS and records management system is NFIRS 2009 compliant. The system upgrade was successfully implemented for all customers to ensure their NFIRS data will be 2009 compliant effective January 1^st.

Emergency Reporting customers were not required to install any software or make account modification and the ability to make NFIRS requirements 'live' the first of the year helps first response agencies immediately make the best possible use of their data.

System Upgrade Today

2008-12-17T13:50:00.001-08:00

A routine maintenance upgrade was performed on the Emergency Reporting web based fire software system at 10:00am PST today (12/17/2008). The system was down for 3 minutes while this upgrade was performed.

Attached are the release notes for this upgrade.

Emergency Reporting v6.12171 Release Notes

Emergency Reporting is constantly improving and enhancing our web based fire software by adding new features to improve the user experience.

The following is a list of new features, updates and enhancements included in the v6.12171 release of our product.

New Features
NFIRS 2009 Updates
EMS Exam Body Map
Address Parser

Improved Ease of Use
Maintenance Module – Printing of individual work orders. (Cases 1895, 2042, 2531, 4493)

General System Changes
Truncation on web services submit. Long names and apartment numbers truncated to match NFIRS specification.

Fixes
A number of bugs in the Incidents module have been fixed.

Metrics

2008-12-13T08:53:00.000-08:00

[metric \ ‘me-trik \ adj 1: of or relating to measurement]

How do you measure your training program and training records to ensure that your department is compliant with the myriad of laws, rules, codes, regulations and standards that are imposed on emergency service organizations every day?

How do you measure your administrative and operations procedures against planned objectives and to ensure that your records management system will let you know when there are anomalies present or may occur in the future?

How do you forecast future cost of operations and make compelling presentations to elected and appointed officials that control the fiscal aspects of your department?

The answer lies in planning your training codes, class and certification templates around your agency objectives. Commit training to a calendar that will be your best effort to satisfy quarterly and annual goals and monitor your progress. There are the inevitable reasons why training does not get done on the intended day, but the calendar should then show specific training sessions as "overdue" and can then be picked up on a later date.

Training that is planned for a specific date and time is infinitely more likely to get done than if the date on the calendar is blank. For more information.

Emergency Reporting offers Virtual Training sessions on a variety of topics and Free sessions every Thursday at 11:00 am PST (holidays excepted).

Building the perfect template

2008-12-13T08:45:00.000-08:00

Why templates? What's the downside of recording training from "scratch"? With all of the capabilities and inter-connected pieces, templates can get pretty complicated. Are they really worth the effort?

In the interest of providing customers the most flexibility and customization, Emergency Reporting has provided many options in the creation of templates. Multiple criteria can be employed in a single template and templates can be built on other templates.

Let's talk about the benefits of templates in general and boil it down to specifics. Templates provide consistency, ability to schedule classes that are repeated and hence "measurable", can contain all of the references and resources necessary for different instructors to deliver the training. Students know that the class will have minimal bias if the criteria is embedded in a template system. This addresses an important "fairness" quality in the training.

To build a template system for Evaluations, Certifications and Classes requires a clear agency-wide agreement and understanding of goals and objectives that a certain training instance will attain. The templates should reflect objectives that satisfy one or more specific training requirements that the agency is obliged to meet.

Fire Service Casualties

2008-12-13T01:26:00.000-08:00

In our travels to customer sites and discussions with our system users, we find that few departments are directing their fire personnel to record injuries incurred at incidents in the incident report. Most people when questioned about this seem to have the impression that the term "casualty" is restricted to a line of duty death.

The NFIRS user guide contains the following explanation:

"The Fire Service Casualty Module (NFIRS–5) is used to report injuries and deaths of firefighters. The module can also be used to report the exposure of a firefighter to chemicals or biological agents at an incident where that exposure does not result in any symptoms at that time but that manifest themselves at a later date. This module may be used with any of the other modules."

In addition to filling out an agency required Injury Report form, providing this information in the NFIRS report contributes to studies related to firefighter and emergency service worker's injuries and it provides documentation that may be needed later to support a job-related claim for compensation.

Injury in the station?

Departments might consider developing a policy that addresses the criteria for creating an incident report when an employee or volunteer is injured on the job. Lights and sirens, rolling the rig are not necessarily pre-requisites for filing an incident report.

The Virtual Classroom

2008-12-13T00:50:00.000-08:00

Virtual Learning, also referred to as Online learning, is learning that takes place on the Internet. The Virtual Classroom amounts to a designated meeting place and time on the internet with instructor-led lessons.

Sessions address a range of topics related to Emergency Reporting records management issues. We offer a free session at 11:00 am PST every Thursday (holidays excepted) at http:emergencyreporting.acrobat.com/thursday/

Audio, video, text, and graphics can all be used to display information along with live demonstrations of the features incorporated in Emergency Reporting.

Benefits of online learning:

1. Allows customers to study when and where they choose.
2. Allows customers to update skills without being absent from work.
3. Avoids the costs associated with travel and lodging away from home.
4. Provides a tailored approach to individual needs or schedules.
5. Allows for real time exchanges with instructors and other users.
6. Allows the integration of Internet resources.

Online Tutorials and recordings of previous training sessions can be accessed by customers on demand; 24/7.

Full Moon

2008-12-12T16:12:00.000-08:00

I have found that Firefighters as a group are a superstitious bunch, at least more super superstitious then us computer programmers. One thing that I hear all the time is that full moons mean more incidents and if you have a full moon shift you will be going on lots of runs. Today, the full moon will be at its closest perigee—the nearest it gets to Earth during its egg-shaped orbit around our planet. More... So if you are superstitious, you should be hanging out at the station tonight for some wild calls.

However, since I am a man of numbers, I decided to run some statistics on our database. Outside of NFIRS itself Emergency Reporting probably have the largest single fire and EMS database in the country -- so I have a lot of good statistical data. Coupled with the dates of the full moon days over the last six years I can up with a new report, (doc id: 1075 for our customers). This new report compares the call per day for full moon days with the calls per day for non-full moons.

We have this nice reporting system that allows our customers to run over a thousand reports on their data, and allows us to easy add a report. In fact we get customer requests all the time for new reports and our repertoire or reports is constantly growing. Most are more meaningful then comparing the cycle of the moon to incidents.

Guess what I found? The moon makes no difference.

However, have you heard that Friday get more EMS calls then any other day of the week? You would know if this were true for your agency if you were our customer. (doc id: 448)

Christmas Tree Fires

2008-12-11T15:26:00.000-08:00

We're in the Christmas holiday season, which warrants a reminder from the United States Fire Administration (USFA) regarding Christmas tree fires.

The USFA claims, "33 million American homes will have a natural tree in its festivities this holiday season and Christmas trees account for 200 fires annually, resulting in 6 deaths, 25 injuries and more than $6 million in property damage. Typically shorts in electrical lights or open flames from candles, lighters or matches start tree fires. Well-watered trees are not a problem. Dry and neglected trees can be." See the USFA website for more information and videos.

The Emergency Reporting system provides users with hundreds of easy to run reports to help administrators better manage resources and maximize fire prevention opportunities. If you have helpful tips on how to inform households on the dangers related to Christmas tree fires, please post them and thanks in advance!