The system, known as CommsCoach and developed by GovWorx, was approved by a county committee last week and is scheduled for a final vote by the full Macomb County Board of Commissioners on March 26.
If approved, the $41,000 platform would allow the county’s 911 center to automatically transcribe calls, identify trends and evaluate dispatcher performance, replacing a largely manual review process currently used by supervisors.
“We’ve been looking at this for about a year,” said Angela Elsey, Macomb County’s dispatch director, in an interview with MLive. “There’s always been a desire to have an enhanced platform to standardize our quality assurance and training.”
Right now, supervisors must manually review calls by pulling records, listening to audio, taking notes and comparing actions against policies, a process that can take significant time and limits how many calls are evaluated.
With the new system, Elsey said the department will be able to review 100% of incidents, offering a more complete picture of performance across the department.
“That’s an incredible insight into what our strengths are and what areas we need to improve,” she said.
The platform will not change how dispatchers handle calls in real time, but will instead be used for post-call evaluation, training and performance feedback. The goal is to provide more consistent and detailed feedback to staff, as well as improve onboarding for new hires through simulated training scenarios based on real calls.
Elsey said the system is also capable of identifying patterns, including tracking calls involving different languages, something that is currently difficult to measure.
She emphasized the technology is not designed to replace dispatchers or interact directly with callers.
“It’s not a live language assistant, and it’s not a bot handling any of our calls,” Elsey said. “It’s specifically designed to help quality assess and train.”
If approved, the county expects the system could be implemented in about two months following a kickoff with the vendor.
Elsey said residents may not notice a dramatic change immediately, but the improvements should lead to more consistent service and better-trained dispatchers over time.
“We already provide a great service,” Elsey said. “But there’s always room for growth, and this should help us continue to improve.”
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