How integrated operations centers turn data into decisions for safer cities

KEY IDEAS:

• Emergency medical services (EMS), fire-rescue, and other emergency response organizations struggle with siloed data due to regulations and information systems that don’t talk to each other.
• Integrated operations centers help personnel reduce response times, anticipate emerging needs, deliver critical situational awareness, and quantify impact.
• Data integration harmonizes legacy data, shared databases, and real-time inputs to provide a comprehensive view of critical incidents and uncover top priorities.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) can serve as a force multiplier by reducing information overload, identifying patterns, delivering alerts, and automating tedious tasks.

With access to the right data at the right time, public safety and emergency response agencies can transform their operations. But capturing and actioning data effectively requires breaking down silos within a department, between partner agencies, and across communities. When leaders invest in collaborative technology and integrated public safety efforts, they’re able to make data-driven decisions that lead to faster, safer, and more accurate responses.

These effects are clear in law enforcement, where agencies have leveraged real-time crime centers to reduce crime, clear more cases, and enable smarter resource allocation. Now, fire-rescue and other emergency response agencies are exploring applications for integrated operations centers.

Earlier this month, we discussed the vision for smarter, more connected cities on an episode of IAFCTV’s Tech Talk Tuesday podcast, hosted by the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). The podcast featured:

• Chris Callsen, Emergency Operations Lead, Peregrine
• Deputy Chief William Broscious, Charlottesville Fire Department (Virginia)
• Battalion Chief Scott Roseberry, Garland Fire Department (Texas), IAFC Chairperson
• Kevin Sofen, IAFC Technology Team Lead

Read on to learn how modern data integration solutions help agencies overcome common roadblocks and create a new playbook for integrated operations.

🧠 WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

• How integrated operations centers break down data silos across public safety industries and agencies
• Why data integration improves response times, situational awareness, and operational impact
• How AI helps first responders reduce information overload
• Why open data policies and interoperability in technology are important to emergency response operations

Why does civic data get stuck in silos?

“I think sometimes we shoot ourselves in the foot. We come up with our own policies, procedures, regulations, rules, not knowing that there really isn't a regulation or law out there prohibiting such sharing of data.” —Battalion Chief Scott Roseberry, Garland Fire Department (Texas)

Data issues run deep across the public sector. Agencies haven’t always had the resources to gather high-quality data or properly analyze that information. These issues are compounded by jurisdictional silos, government regulations, and incompatible tech solutions that prevent data sharing and analysis.

Agencies do need to be conscientious of privacy and security standards, such as CJIS and HIPAA. But compliance concerns can sometimes lead organizations to believe their data can’t be shared at all — but in reality, that’s rarely the case.

Sometimes, data sharing roadblocks are self-imposed, Chief Roseberry said on the podcast.

“I think sometimes we shoot ourselves in the foot,” Roseberry said. “We come up with our own policies, procedures, regulations, rules, not knowing that there really isn't a regulation or law out there prohibiting such sharing of data.”

However, agencies also struggle with vendor-imposed obstacles. Instead of creating interoperable solutions that allow data to flow freely, some vendors use predatory practices to hold organizations’ data hostage.

“They’ve forgotten that the data they’re ingesting into their technologies is actually the customer's data, not their data,” said Callsen. “So they put up roadblocks to share that data.”

Vendors might charge extra for data sharing APIs, or place restrictions on searching data in a third-party platform. That means customers can’t fully access, move, or analyze their own data.

But the situation isn’t hopeless. Agencies can turn to trustworthy, interoperable tech solutions that help integrate data across jurisdictional lines.

READ MORE → Own Your Data: Interoperability and the Risks of Vendor Lock-In

What are the benefits of an integrated operations center?

When agencies unlock and unify their data, they can increase efficiency, develop data-driven strategies, and streamline communications during crisis response. Integrated operations centers centralize historic and real-time data across EMS, fire-rescue, dispatch, and other emergency response organizations. Explore a few benefits of harmonized operations below.

💡 HOW DO INTEGRATED EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTERS WORK?

• Data from multiple agencies and systems is ingested into a single platform.
• Information is standardized, deduplicated, and linked across sources.
• Dashboards and alerts surface real-time insights for field operators.
• Leaders and responders act from a shared operating picture.

Increase situational awareness

Roseberry envisions an integrated operations center that serves an entire jurisdiction, bringing together real-time data to paint a holistic picture of emerging incidents in the community. For example, personnel could track locations of EMS, fire-rescue, and police officers simultaneously, ensuring field operations proceed smoothly. They could monitor incident-related data from external sources, such as weather gauges, water department data, and traffic flows.

Data integration technology brings those siloed sources into a single pane of glass, providing a clear view of developing situations. When an emergency strikes, personnel have everything they need to jump into action, instead of wasting time tracking down and manually pulling disconnected data. They could immediately start triaging the situation, deploying optimal resources, and providing real-time updates to first responders.

“When that major catastrophe happens, that's when you would see the huge benefits from it,” Roseberry said.

READ MORE → Manatee County Sets a New Standard for Hurricane Response

Anticipate emerging needs

When Callsen worked in Austin’s emergency operations center during Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katrina, getting critical data took too long. Flood sensor data went through three or four changes of hands before the EOC received it. Personnel depended on phone calls from shelters to get bed availability updates. And transportation personnel had to call in road closures.

“It wasn't real-time data. Think about all of that in real time: the ability to reroute resources, to move resources to a new area, to watch the speed with which flood waters are changing,” Callsen said. “It's clear that having that information in real time really should make a difference.”

When coordinating agencies have access to collaborative, dynamic data, they benefit from a common operating picture. They’re able to stay agile, identify gaps, prioritize resource deployment, and anticipate needs as they emerge.

“When data is coming fast and furious, the ability to watch it evolve, to monitor it in real time and in an integrated sense is hugely valuable,” Callsen said.

Demonstrate tangible impact

It can be hard to track response efforts, costs, and impact. But when city officials ask how an agency responded to an incident, leaders have to be prepared, Deputy Chief Broscious said. With integration solutions, leaders benefit from automated data analysis that seamlessly pulls diverse information, such as 911 call data, overtime costs, and damage assessments. Having hard data on hand helps bolster requests for additional resources.

“The worst answer to those questions is, ‘I don't know. Let me get back to you,’” Broscious said. “How impressive is it when you say, ‘Hold on one second,’ and open up your tablet or your cellphone: ‘Hey, here's the real lot.’”

Spark continual improvement

Real-time data can improve internal operations, too. For example, leaders could set up dynamic dashboards that compare turnout times between different shifts or stations. EMS and fire-rescue personnel are naturally competitive, Broscious said, so if you show personnel how they stack up, those times are sure to come down.

When leveraged correctly, data can be a powerful motivator, especially as organizations start to see positive results. Collecting wins can spark new ideas, Callsen said.

“Because it's been so hard for a long time, we haven't been as imaginative as we could be,” Callsen said. “It's time we get our imagination back by being able to share our data and think about all the things that we could do.”

How does Peregrine support integrated emergency operations?

Turning innovative ideas into reality isn’t easy. Organizations rely on different technologies, APIs, and operating procedures, often in systems that don’t communicate well with one another. Those gaps slow coordination among teams and partners. Without a unifying solution, organizations struggle to operate from a shared understanding.

True technology partners make integrated operations possible through interoperability and open data policies. Peregrine, a data integration and analytics solution, powers real-time operation centers around the U.S. by centralizing data from previously siloed sources. Peregrine builds bridges across departments, tech solutions, and data types, creating a common language that enhances collaboration.

“Where Peregrine really works its magic is the ability to source those different pieces and bring them together in a centralized view,” Callsen said.

Peregrine harmonizes historical data and real-time inputs, such as records management system data, computer-aided dispatch data, electronic health records, electronic patient care reports, GIS data, state or federal databases, real-time traffic data, sensor data, and live critical infrastructure data.

Peregrine enhances raw data using machine-driven methods, intelligently linking people, places, and events. Those insights are delivered in dynamic, user-friendly, and shareable dashboards with built-in security controls and compliance with legal and agency-specific regulations.

The ability to integrate legacy data is especially critical for fire-response agencies transitioning from National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) to National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS) data. That archived NFIRS data is often messy and incomplete, leading agencies to believe that it isn’t usable.

“How do you take those two sources and put them together in a way that is seamlessly searchable through the always-desired single pane of glass?” Callsen said. “That is exactly what Peregrine does.”

Peregrine cleans dirty data through intelligent pattern matching and record deduplication, seamlessly folding legacy data into its statistical analysis while providing the source lineage so personnel can use their intuition to gut check the information, Callsen said.

READ MORE → Cutting-Edge Tech for Modern Emergency Operations Teams

How can AI help with data management for first responders?

“So much of that data can become noise. We don't need to know everything at every point during the incident. We need to know what we need to know when we need to know it. If I fixate on that screen of where everybody's at the entire time, I lose my situational awareness. I need AI to help point out when something's about to go wrong.” —Battalion Chief Scott Roseberry, Garland Fire Department (Texas)

Without the right tools to highlight key insights, unstructured data can cause information overload. Emergency response personnel can look to emerging AI technology as a force-multiplying solution that prevents mental fatigue, automatically flags anomalies, and guides data-driven decisions.

“So much of that data can become noise. We don't need to know everything at every point during the incident. We need to know what we need to know when we need to know it,” Roseberry said. “If I fixate on that screen of where everybody's at the entire time, I lose my situational awareness. I need AI to help point out when something's about to go wrong.”

A fire chief doesn’t need to know when his personnel are moving normally in the field. They need to know if someone hasn’t moved in 10 seconds, Callsen said. AI helps personnel isolate what’s immediately important, rather than getting lost amid overwhelming inputs.

Agencies should work with tech partners to develop AI solutions that suit their specific capabilities, Callsen said. Consider a few use cases below.

• Support informed decision-making. AI can flag anomalous activity to help personnel understand what is changing quickly and needs immediate attention.
• Enhance safety and situational awareness. AI can deliver relevant, real-time insights to personnel in the field, which is especially helpful for agencies with limited resources.
• Discover unseen connections. AI can uncover patterns among large, disconnected datasets to surface and deliver insights that make it easier for personnel to do their jobs.
• Streamline reporting. Data analysis and automation can speed up impact analysis, environmental compliance reporting, and other tedious tasks. Personnel can focus their full attention on more complex responsibilities.

Bring your vision for public safety to life

When public agencies unlock and action their data, they’re able to support personnel by reducing workloads, optimizing operations, enhancing communication, and increasing situational awareness.

Peregrine partners with agencies that want to invest in more connected, data-driven futures. Our data integration and analysis platform ingests virtually any data source to enhance integrated operations. Disparate data is synthesized and presented in dynamic maps and visualizations, delivering immediately actionable insights. Our CJIS- and HIPAA-compliant platform uses permission-based security controls to keep your data safe.

Peregrine exists to make your vision a reality, with a fully configurable solution to meet your specific needs. Our deployment specialists embed with your agency to understand your procedures, capabilities, and priorities, then design custom solutions to solve your most pressing problems.

“We start by asking the question, ‘What are you trying to achieve? What are the questions you have you can't answer?’” Callsen said. “They learn everything there is to learn about your data, about your operation, about your organization.”

To learn more about how Peregrine powers integrated operations to enhance safety, operations, and efficiency, watch the full IAFCTV Tech Talk Tuesday episode.