Tech tune-up: MACC upgrades designed to make emergency response easier all around

Jan. 17—MOSES LAKE — Emergencies are no respecters of time, place, or circumstances. With that in mind, operators of the Multi-Agency Communications Center — also known as MACC 911 — are working on upgrading technology to make it easier for people to report an emergency, and for dispatchers to get the information emergency responders need to know.

D.T. Donaldson, MACC director, said the upgrades are designed to speed up the flow of information and make it as reliable as possible.

"We can take the 911 call," he said. "In fact, our backup center still has copper phone lines, so we can get the call. But some of the new features, I think, over the next couple years we're going to consider them highly valuable, to where just getting the call is not going to be enough anymore."

The upgraded system, built by the Carbyne company, will be able to identify and provide near-simultaneous translation for the dispatcher when the person reporting the emergency is speaking another language. The system also allows callers to send video or photos, and will allow dispatchers to get more accurate locations.

Alex Gruber, Carbyne's vice president of product, said the translation software accommodates Spanish now, and should accommodate Russian and Ukrainian by late spring.

"This is one of the challenges," Gruber said. "You may call in and you may have enough conversational English to start, but you (might) revert back to your native language."

Callers switching back and forth between languages presented a challenge, Gruber said, but the system will be able to follow the switch with very little time lag.

"Less than a second," he said. "It takes us about four words to understand it's no longer English, or it's no longer Spanish, or whatever language it is."

Donaldson demonstrated it, and showed it's still a work in progress. Eventually, the software will be able to translate the dispatcher's responses to the caller. That's still in development.

Carbyne also is working on an application that will help dispatchers when an incident attracts the attention of multiple people. Donaldson said it should be operational by the end of 2024.

Dispatcher Somer Rice cited the case of an accident or fire visible from Interstate 90. Frequently those generate multiple reports.

"The phones will blow up," she said.

The software will be able to locate multiple calls within a given radius, and correlate that with an incident report.

"We only have a certain number of call takers in (dispatch)," Donaldson said. "So when we get 10-15 calls at the same time, we can't answer them all at the same time. When this goes in place, you'll call and you won't be on hold. The voice bot will answer the phone."

The software will reference any report of activity in the area where the cluster of calls originates. Callers will be asked if they're reporting that incident.

"If you say yes, we'll have some predefined questions that we'll ask you," he said.

Gruber said that allows the software to find the person facing an immediate threat.

"If you say, 'Yes, I'm in the accident,' and, 'Yes, I'm hurt,' then your calls will be prioritized," he said.

A caller that's not involved in the incident would be identified, Gruber said.

"The challenge is, in that 50 (phone calls) it could be caller 49 that needs immediate medical help, is not in the vicinity of the accident," he said. "We can help triage those calls, and make sure the calls that need attention first get that attention."

Currently, the software allows MACC to receive video and photos. Donaldson cited the case of a fight involving multiple people. Previously the dispatcher had to ask multiple questions to determine what was going on.

The video allowed the dispatcher to skip some of those questions — it was possible to determine, at least in general terms, the ages of the people involved, how many were involved, and whether or not there were weapons. Dispatchers could see the clothing the people were wearing and which direction they went as they scattered.

"I can see all of that in real time, right away, and I can get it out to the units," Donaldson said. "Even if I don't have time to type it, I can say it over the air."

Donaldson said MACC also is working on adding backups to the system, so that if the primary communications platform is unusable, there's a backup. And the goal is to have a backup to the backup, he said, with the fourth backup being an automatic transfer to RiverCom dispatch in Wenatchee.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.