Volusia County is getting a major upgrade to its 911 dispatch system — one designed to make sure the right resources reach the right emergencies at the right time. The county council recently approved the purchase of the new $2 million system.
The upgrade centers on prioritizing calls based on severity. When someone dials 911, dispatchers will guide callers through a series of targeted questions. A new software system will then analyze those answers using specific algorithms to determine how serious the emergency is — and what kind of response it warrants.
Mark Wolcott, Volusia County’s Emergency Medical Services administration director, says the goal is smarter, safer emergency response.
“As we get this rolled out again, our primary focus is safer streets by slowing down response apparatus when they don’t need to respond to lights and sirens and getting the right resource to the right person,” Wolcott said.
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Dispatchers and the new system will work in tandem, with the shared goal of making emergency responses more efficient and preserving advanced resources for the most critical calls.
“As we start to run down through some of these algorithms and we determine that the patient acuity or the severity of the complaint is just relatively benign, we can leave those advanced life support assets in place for the next call that comes in,” Wolcott said.
In practice, that means the nature of a caller’s complaint could determine not just what is sent — but how urgently.
“The elephant on the chest call that will get kicked out quickly on a higher priority, whereas a chest pain that’s been present for nine months and the urgency isn’t as great, may reduce the number of trucks that we send to that call and the urgency of which we send them,” Wolcott said.
The new dispatch system will work alongside another recently adopted tool. Several Volusia County agencies have already implemented the “Live 911” system, which allows first responders to listen to 911 calls in real time — letting them begin moving toward a scene before a formal dispatch is issued.
Wolcott says the combination of both systems could significantly speed up response times.
“They’re able to listen in on those calls in addition to the algorithms and priority dispatch — so the paramedic who’s a clinician with many years of experience, they’re able to hear some things and make some on the spot decisions,” Wolcott said.
The package also includes an artificial intelligence component, though it will not be used to answer 911 calls directly. Instead, the county is acquiring an AI-powered training simulator that will allow dispatchers to practice handling a wide range of simulated emergency scenarios. The county says full implementation is expected to take approximately six months, with the system projected to be fully operational by spring 2027.