Everbridge has announced its next-generation 911 solution designed to improve emergency dispatch in the United States. Through a partnership with RapidSOS, Everbridge 911 Connect™, an extension of the company’s CEM for Public Safety solutions, delivers enhanced location accuracy and provides unique caller identification information on wireless 911 calls, leveraging an expanded life safety database of over 250 million residential and business contacts.
The new solution also captures critical information from residents to assist first responders while en-route to an emergency call, including special and functional needs, mental health impairments and household information, which is critical in helping responders with their daily mission.
Today, about 80% of all 911 calls in the U.S. come from mobile phones. The Everbridge 911 Connect™, will enhance the level of information coming into Emergency Communication Centers (ECCs) at the time of an emergency call.
“The work of 911 dispatchers saves lives, and Emergency Communication Centers should have the best available technology at their disposal,” said David Meredith, CEO at Everbridge. “We’re excited to partner with an industry leader like RapidSOS to offer best-in-class technology for providing life safety data and enhanced location accuracy for first responders to safely respond to and mitigate emergency calls, making every second count.”
RapidSOS built the world’s first emergency response data platform to securely link data from more than 350 million connected devices and sensors directly to first responders during emergencies. The platform provides intelligent, real-time data to first responders to support a faster and smarter emergency response. RapidSOS data is used by over 5,000 ECCs globally, covering 94% of the U.S. population.
“Advances in technology have transformed our world, but emergency infrastructure continues to lag behind,” said Michael Martin, CEO of RapidSOS. “RapidSOS is thrilled to partner with Everbridge in service of some of the largest organizations to help them protect their customers, members, and employees. Together, we can empower first responders with the data they need to save lives.”
Everbridge 911 Connect is now RapidSOS Ready and expands upon Everbridge’s existing E911 capabilities. When someone makes a 911 call from a mobile device, landline phone, or VoIP, Everbridge 911 Connect provides public safety alerting authorities and ECC dispatchers with life-saving incident-specific information about the 911 caller that they are not receiving today (such as name, device location, and contact address, as well as additional information such as special needs, medical condition, and photos) to accelerate emergency response. Should an incident evolve and impact more people, authorities can send mass notifications to a targeted area from one integrated Everbridge Critical Event Management platform.
An estimated 240 million calls are made to 911 in the U.S. each year. The national standard for Emergency Dispatch is responding to 90 percent of calls in under 10 seconds. Federal regulators estimate that saving a minute off emergency response times could save as many 10,000 lives a year. Location technology can make the 911 call centers more efficient. Within the enhanced platform, if a caller cannot communicate where they are, the dispatcher can log their cell phone number into the system and get their location. User data cannot be used for any non-emergency purpose, and only the responding 911 center will have access to the user’s location during an emergency call.
Everbridge also recently announced the release of its industry-leading Resident Connection solution designed to expand the reach of first responders and emergency managers. Resident Connection provides Everbridge customers access to the most precise and complete name, address, and phone (SMS, mobile, landline, and VoIP) data available in the United States, aggregated from more than 300 verified sources and geo-coded to home, street, or zip code. The database contains over 225 million resident and 28 million business contacts, allowing local, county, and state government leaders to quickly and accurately reach the largest number of people in an emergency.
