First Responders Increase Investments in Cloud Solutions

The nation’s EMS and fire departments are at an important juncture, says Alison Brooks, research vice president for IDC’s Worldwide Public Safety practice. With the pandemic behind them, most still face personnel challenges (staff burnout, widespread resignations) even as they’re called on to handle fresh crises, from climate disasters to an opioid epidemic. Technology solutions help them navigate these challenges.

“Everybody thinks of EMS as an essential service, but from a budget and governance perspective, only a few states operate that way,” Brooks says. “So, technology can serve as a multiplier. Today’s solutions are easier to use, with better capabilities across the board.”

According to IDC, 2023 was the first year that public safety agencies spent more on digital initiatives than on nondigital programs, with a focus on ensuring collaboration, continuity of communications and real-time situational awareness.

Cloud Solutions May Assist with Public Safety Challenges

Moving to the cloud has been a key enabler for EMS and fire agencies, Brooks says, but so has greater usability. “We’ve seen a push by EMS and fire agencies for solutions that are more seamless, more intuitive and more user-friendly,” she says

In New Orleans, the goal is to transform services and boost safety — both for citizens and for city workers.

The Samsara solution “gives our operators real-time information,” Palmisano says. “If they’re driving too fast, it alerts them to slow down. Using face recognition, it securely recognizes that the proper person is operating the vehicle. And the outward-facing cameras allow us to better triage resources for big events.”

This all has reduced the number of incidents involving city resources, such as ambulance collisions, and helped the city get a better handle on public safety. Next year, Mardi Gras follows on the heels another major event in New Orleans: the Super Bowl.

“That’s going to require a lot of resource management,” Palmisano says. “This technology will definitely help.”

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Fire District Uses Available Resources to Solve a Problem

Western Lakes Fire District, about 30 miles west of Milwaukee, got creative when it turned its burgeoning drone program into a visual collaboration platform. Funded by community donations, the district launched its aviation team in 2021, roughly the same time it transitioned to Microsoft 365 for cloud-based email, communications and productivity.

As Western Lakes FD’s primary drone operator, Deputy Chief Brad Ingersoll started to wonder if he could use Microsoft Teams to share video created by the district’s DJI Matrice M300 RTK drone.

“I quickly realized that while the drone was useful and fun to fly around, it was no good if we couldn’t share what it saw,” he says. “And we needed it right now, not 10 minutes later when we could get the video off the drone’s SD card.”

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The department knew it could pay a monthly fee to stream video from its drone, but couldn’t justify the cost, as the rural district needed drone coverage for only a few calls per month. So, IT staff loaded Teams onto the drone’s Android-based controller, established connectivity through a hotspot-enabled smartphone and started sharing real-time drone video across the department.

“It was very rudimentary at first,” Ingersoll says. “We stood someone with a cell phone next to the drone operator and streamed the video over Teams.”

Fire Solution Builds on Previous Success

The solution worked so intuitively that Western Lakes FD expanded its capabilities. It outfitted a command vehicle with a CradlePoint WAN router, a laptop and twin 46-inch displays to improve situational awareness during emergency deployments. Today, all the district’s vehicles have CradlePoint routers to enhance communication, including video collaboration.

“We don’t have latency issues with drone footage anymore,” Ingersoll says. “Anyone can access it. We had people carrying Apple iPads just for EMS reporting. But now the devices have Teams, and during a wildfire or search and rescue, we can see the situation in real time.”

Using Teams to share drone video, Western Lakes FD can tap the expertise of others who may spot details in a feed, such as hazardous materials, and alert fire and EMS personnel. And local law enforcement often calls in the Western Lakes FD aviation team for support.

“Normally, during law enforcement response, our role would be to stand by with an ambulance,” Ingersoll says. “Now they know that we can provide situational awareness.”

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New Orleans Gains Visibility Across Resources with Cloud

For New Orleans EMS, situational awareness means more than just monitoring crowds throughout the city. The department’s Samsara cloud solution captures and stores about a month’s worth of video for all the 87 (soon to be 100) vehicles currently outfitted, and the department uses it several ways.

“One of our ambulance crews was leaving a hospital when there was a shooting,” says Deputy Chief Palmisano. “We were able to give that footage to police.”

In addition, New Orleans EMS uses captured video to train vehicle operators and protect them from public claims.

“We’ve definitely seen a decrease in motor vehicle collisions involving ambulances and emergency vehicles,” Palmisano says. “A reduction in accidents is going to save us money, whether in vehicle and property damage or in lawsuits.”

But in the bigger picture, the Samsara solution gives Palmisano’s team greater visibility into all the department’s operations. “From a central dashboard, I can dial into data about a specific vehicle or see all the vehicles — location, fuel status, diagnostic codes, drivers,” Palmisano says. “All of that data populates reports we produce every quarter.”

IDC’s Brooks, who spent years in government service, sees the acceleration of technology adoption in fire and EMS as key to meeting the moment.

“They’ve got more firepower at their disposal and are able to do more with the first responders they have,” she says. “Drones, Internet of Things sensors, generative AI. They’re all usable and needed now. The gap between technology’s promise and reality has really become compressed.”