The Illinois State Police earlier this week touted Illinois agencies that have already rolled out NextGen 9-1-1 systems.
DeWitt County's CENCOM Director says while the new system will bring emergency response into the 21st century, there are still going to be kinks to work through. Tony Harris foresees things like apps for the public to use or even tapping into software that could gain access to information about your health.
According to Harris, the capabilities of this new system will allow for text messages, pictures, and videos to be sent to 9-1-1. While there could be a few challenges associated with that, he believes it will be more helpful than anything.
While there will be benefits to the new system, Harris also has concerns for the well-being of his dispatchers from a psychological perspective because of some of the things they could see without warning.
Like when a 9-1-1 call comes in, there will be a routing process to get the geographical location of any submission to them. He says that will be an important factor in implementing the new system.
Harris stresses this will be as seemless of a transition for the public and there is still a lot of work to be done but they will be ready as soon as the State of Illinois is ready to go live.
