SUMMIT COUNTY — County Executive Ilene Shapiro announced the Summit Emergency Communications Center (SECC) has been named the 2025 Ohio Gold Star Dispatch Center of the Year. The award was presented on Sept. 16 in Delaware, Ohio, as part of the Ohio Gold Star Awards program.
Across the country, 911 call centers are so understaffed that some are turning to artificial intelligence to answer non-emergency calls.
At Lake County 911 in Indiana, an AI call taker named “AVA” has handled more than 35,000 calls within just months.
But how does it work?
Starting this month, Boulder Police and Fire Communications Center will begin using AI technology during limited hours and days of the week to answer non-emergency calls. The purpose is to provide faster and more efficient responses to those calls, which will allow dispatchers to handle higher priority calls more quickly.
This technology will not be used to answer 911 calls and there are several safeguards in place to immediately transfer calls that become an emergency.
At the recent Vision 2026: FirstNet Users Summit, hosted by the Public Safety Broadband Technology Association (PSBTA), there was a big US map on display for attendees to stick pins in the places where they need coverage and submit written requests.
The activity was a first for the PSBTA’s annual event, which attracted around 430 people from public safety, and illustrated that network coverage remains the biggest issue for many first responders when they rely on 4G and 5G to communicate wherever an emergency takes them.
Four regional emergency dispatch centers including those for Fairfield, West Chester Twp. and Warren County, are being honored for their work.
Those dispatch centers joined with the Cincinnati Emergency Communications Center to work on developing and enhancing integrated Computer Aided Dispatch platforms over the past three years. The platforms enable rapid sharing of critical emergency information.
