The North Richland Hills Police Department in Texas has been continually recognized for several years in proving compliance and best practices in all aspects of law enforcement. Continuing to follow and prove best practices, the department has made a notable change to how it communicates with its police officers and staff by installing First Arriving’s Digital Dashboards.
North Richland Hills Public Safety PIO and Media Relations Coordinator Carissa Katekaru said that they first saw the First Arriving Digital Dashboards at the North Richland Hills Fire Department.
“The system we had just wasn’t working well for our needs and we loved the First Arriving dashboard we saw at the fire department, and we looked into how it is being used.” said Katekaru.
“We asked First Arriving if they could create a police version of a digital dashboard and they modified what they had to make it work for us.”
First Arriving Digital Dashboards have over 100 platforms, apps, widgets, and other integrations that can be customized to meet a department’s communications needs. The North Richland Hills Police Department is currently using Google Calendar for training, Google Documents and Google Slides, and the National Weather Service. The department is planning to add CAD and Dispatch, and YouTube integrations in the future.
“We also have our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds in there as well as showing work anniversaries and birthdays,” Katekaru added. “The Google Calendar integration is good for our training information and allows us to announce upcoming openings in certain areas, such as our SWAT team.”
The three digital dashboards in use by the department are strategically placed in high traffic areas in the building to strengthen communication among officers.
“We are a four-shift department, with each shift working 12 hours on a three-on, two-off schedule and we don’t see each other,” explained Katekaru. “The feedback from the officers about the dashboards has been great. The dashboards are an effective way to communicate with our officers, especially the night shift, and they also help with communication between officers and fleet management.”
