The worst part about many jobs is paperwork, and the fire service industry is no different. Most firefighters, officers, and chiefs mention paperwork as one of their least favorite parts of the job.

But paperwork, in the form of data and documentation, is crucial to fire operations and safety. For example, fire service data allows leaders to analyze departmental procedures and operational plans to better manage or improve these items.

However, the challenge with studying data is that it has to be entered and maintained accurately for it to be of any benefit. That can be tedious, which is why many people don’t volunteer for it.

At Battalion 3 Technologies, we understand both the value and challenge of paperwork and data, which is why we’ve built all of our software solutions and deploy them on Zebra mobile computers and tablets to automate data capture and data entry.

Our software is designed to generate as much required data as possible by simply using our solutions to complete operational tasks and procedures. This way, the end-user doesn’t feel like they’re doing data entry, using longhand to document information, or completing anything other than the task at hand.

By deploying our solutions on Zebra rugged enterprise tablets, we also leverage Zebra’s multi-core processing power, expanded memory, and easy-to-use touch computing interface to speed up and simplify data capture and mobile workflows.

Here are a few quick examples of how our solutions do all of this.

ICx is an easy-to-use drag-and-drop digital command interface that allows incident commanders to track resources on the fireground or emergency scene in a way that’s much easier than writing. The program takes these moves, tracks them with an incident timer, and automatically creates a log of everything that was done on the scene.

This automatic logging is important because it allows the IC to import essential data into an incident report without having to spend time writing the narrative. ICx allows for after-action review of the scene for quality improvement and saves data that may be useful for investigation purposes.

As another example, FireRoster.com is a web-based solution for firefighter scheduling. The interface is intuitive and creates a fast workflow for managing staffing, assigning work codes that assist with payroll, and letting members request leave and trades—all while compiling data in the back end that can be used to track several metrics.

RehabPro is our NFPA-1584-compliant firefighter rehab solution. While it’s beneficial to the end user to maintain a simple-to-use interface with essentially no learning curve, RehabPro is also a powerful tool for analytics and data collection.

Members have a unique login and profile that automatically compiles all evaluation data. This is their encrypted, protected information, and no one has access to the compiled personnel data with any sort of identifiable information.

The department is able to use this scrubbed, vetted, and anonymous data to run studies to see percentages of times rehab was completed, average vital signs before and after rest, etc.

While we truly believe that data is an important facet of fire service planning and management, we also know that managing data accurately can be a time-consuming burden. To that end, we intentionally built our solutions to collect this important data without adding workload for the end user.

Data is vital for continually improving fire service operations and management, but it should never be a burden. Otherwise, the risk is that we won’t collect sufficient data or the accuracy of data may be compromised.

To learn more about automating fire service data capture and data collection with our software and technology solutions, contact Battalion 3 now.