Editor's note: Find Firehouse.com's complete coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic here.
NEW YORK (March 25, 2020) - First Due, known to Public Safety agencies across the US for developing next-generation pre-incident planning, mobile response, and community engagement solutions, announced today, in partnership & collaboration with the International Association of Fire Chiefs, a FREE version of their Community Connect platform, in order to help Fire-EMS, Police, Emergency Management, and Healthcare agencies better combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Community Connect is currently used nationwide, enabling citizens to share critical life safety details of their households and businesses with their respective Public Safety agencies. With the ensuing COVID-19 Health Crisis developing across the United States, First Due has released a COVID-19 focused version of Community Connect, designed to allow residents to self-report their status and take protective actions during the outbreak. Agencies can use this information at the time of response or analyze the data in GIS platforms such as Esri’s ArcGIS.
“This tool will allow fire and EMS agencies the ability to know better where citizens have self-isolated or self-quarantined themselves in their community. With this information at their fingertips, firefighters and EMS personnel will have a much clearer picture of who they are responding to and what their health situation is. The IAFC is pleased to partner with innovative companies and technologies that help provide better, faster, and more capable services for our communities. We are pleased to partner with First Due.” — Fire Chief Gary Ludwig, IAFC President and Chairman of the Board.
Community Connect for COVID-19 offers residents an easy-to-use web portal, available on any device, where they can self-report critical information in line with industry protocol. Within the web portal, residents will be able to share contact, symptom, test, and high-risk related information. Shared information will then be available to First Responders to better prioritize COVID-19 driven care or take proper precautions before entering. Additionally, data collected from residents will be made actionable across GIS applications, such as Esri’s ArcGIS to give Public Safety agencies insight into how the Coronavirus is affecting their community.
“We’ve heard from Public Safety Agencies nationwide how difficult it is to track, manage, and report on current COVID-19 cases in their communities, resulting in First Responder exposures and a lack of situational awareness. Now, more than ever, Emergency Services need this critical information for a more prepared response. For that reason, we ask everyone to take two minutes out of their day to sign up and self-report!” explains Andreas Huber, First Due’s Co-Founder & CEO.
Community Connect for COVID-19 is designed for the sole mission of improving emergency response and community risk area analysis. Data shared via the platform will not be used for any other purpose and is 100% secure featuring bank-level encryption and security standards.
If you are a Public Safety agency and would like to receive First Responder Access to the system, click here to create your FREE account.
Self-Reporting will be open to the public on Friday the 27th of March at 3:00 PM EST following a formal announcement by First Due.
ABOUT FIRST DUE
First Due is a public safety software company based in New York City and backed by Teamworthy Ventures, TechNexus, Collate Capital, New York Angels and HBSAANY. First Due's cloud-based First Responder safety and situational awareness platform re-imagines Pre-Incident Planning, Emergency Response and Community Engagement for public safety agencies nationwide. By automating the aggregation of disparate data sources, and providing powerful planning, mapping and community engagement tools; public safety agencies finally have actionable data on every structure for every call in a format they can consume in seconds.
Departments utilizing First Due such as Seattle, Ft. Lauderdale, Charlotte, and Fort Worth, have the data they need for better decisions before, during and after incidents - leading to more positive outcomes.
To request more information regarding First Due’s products or to get in touch with First Due’s executive team, please visit firstduesizeup.com.
