This April, Janick Lewis with New Orleans EMS, attended the 2019 Louisiana APCO-NENA Symposium in Lake Charles. The symposium featured sessions dedicated to 911 dispatching concerns within Louisiana and building out on the networking within these systems to improve communication. As a 911 Liaison to the New Orleans 911 dispatch center, Janick had the opportunity to network with other area 911 dispatch services, and observe the latest developments in software used to operate the current systems.
In attending, Mr. Lewis stated he had the opportunity to continue building relationships with other 911 centers within the state.
"With my limited experience within communications I don’t really have a grasp of available best practices. Currently, our department is regularly being advised to make significant changes to how we communicate over the air and with the 911 center. To best represent NOEMS I need further understanding to differentiate between the suggestions that would present true improvements, and those which don’t serve our interests. I also need to better understand the operations of our surrounding agencies as we are being pushed to standardize some aspects of our communications and dispatching across the state.
With the likelihood of further state wide weather events, better relationships can lead to to being more prepared to either offer or receive mutual aid in those responses."
Janick Lewis also had the opportunity to visit the Acadian Ambulance Dispatch Center and attend courses addressing leadership and
performance metrics which has been a particular interest of the CAOs office, and domestic violence incidents, which NOEMS is now being brought into the fold with the Health Department and NOPD to address as a city wide concern.