Article Highlights
- The problem: Manually updating ECC policies and procedures
- The solution: PowerPolicy, a 911 dispatch management software tool
- The benefits: Save time and money, keep staff informed, and reduce risk
The problem: Outdated policy management processes
Manual, paper-based processes take time – and a lot of it. If you manage your 911 dispatch policies and procedures manually, you’re no doubt familiar with the extensive resources required to maintain and distribute documents. Whenever you need to update a policy or procedure, you must track down physical documents that might be spread across the agency, hidden in filing cabinets or unused desk drawers. After you (hopefully) update each document, you have to communicate policy changes to everyone in the ECC.
An outdated policy management process wastes resources and impedes your ability to provide the best dispatching services possible. Since there are few safeguards in place with a manual process, it can be challenging to know with certainty that everyone is aware of updates. These communication gaps open your organization up to liability and compliance risks, since staff may accidentally refer to outdated SOPs or policies.
All the time you spend undertaking these inefficient tasks means staff have less capacity for important tasks, like improving dispatch efficiency. Simply put, outdated policy processes aren’t only inconvenient: they also impact the quality and effectiveness of the services you provide to stakeholders and the community at large.
The solution: Policy automation software
Fortunately, PowerPolicy by PowerDMS provides automated policy management to help your agency overcome these challenges. This cloud-based 911 dispatch policy automation software allows agencies to easily access and maintain all policies and procedures. With unlimited storage for most file types, you can upload a wide variety of files to the PowerPolicy central repository, including:
- Word docs
- Excel sheets
- PowerPoint presentations
- PDF and HTML files
- Images
- Videos
- Audio
PowerPolicy also comes with policy templates that integrate with Google Drive, OneDrive, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. This enables you to use editing tools your organization already knows and trusts to edit and save documents. Any changes you save are automatically updated within PowerPolicy and you can easily import documents into the system with a simple drag-and-drop feature. The table below outlines additional features that make your 911 communications center policies and procedures easy to find, store, and track.
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PowerPolicy Feature |
Benefits |
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Access control |
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Version control |
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Document categorization/tags and keyword search |
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You can also use PowerPolicy’s 911 dispatch management software to set up automated review cycles and ensure that policies are reviewed, updated, and approved regularly. Using these automated workflow processes, assign tasks to individual users, groups, and distribution lists so staff can take appropriate action for each document version release. This includes identifying a routing structure for review, edits, and approvals and creating standard workflow templates to ensure consistent processes.
Finally, when it comes time for telecommunicators to review policy updates, PowerPolicy sends out automated email notifications to inform them that action is required. Your agency can use the electronic signature tool so staff must sign-off on a completed document review to demonstrate they are aware of the changes, and administrators can visit their dashboard to track task statuses across the organization, including any outstanding items.
The benefits of automated policy management
PowerPolicy keeps your employees informed and prepared with the most up-to-date policies. Its streamlined and automated document storage and distribution features improve your policy management efficiency, and the digital repository enables staff to access policies whenever – and wherever – they need them.
PowerDMS’s policy automation software also saves your organization time and money by allowing you to update policies four times faster, and switching from paper-based processes to a digital management solution saves $11,000 on paper and printing costs, on average. All of this helps you mitigate compliance risk to your organization and focus on what really matters: facilitating effective and safe emergency response operations.
Learn more
Schedule a demo today if you’re ready to learn more about how PowerDMS’s policy automation software, PowerPolicy, can improve your ECC operations.