Rantoul, Illinois with a population of around 13,000 is served by the Rantoul Fire Department. First Arriving Dashboards became a solution to improve communication for the 33 members in the department.
“We all have full daytime jobs and lot of responsibilities are passed through word of mouth, email or text,” said firefighter Jeremy Larson. These methods of communication can lead to inefficient communication, which can be detrimental to the departments ability to function cohesively.
First Arriving Dashboards eliminate the issues that come with other methods of communication. Departments can decide what information that want displayed, what features that want integrated and they have the ability to then manage the content, ensuring that all is up-to-date. These features appealed to Rantoul.
“A digital bulletin board was exactly what I was looking for to display events, training, information and it was a way to introduce the department to people visiting,” Larson said.
With their new dashboards, communication between the two stations are unified, Larson said. Larson also found that managing the content for dashboards to be simple. “I can pull out my phone and update it easily using Google Docs.”
What has most impressed Larson with First Arriving, however, is the support his dashboards have received once launched. “Lydia from the dashboard team is very responsive and is very easy to work with on any updates we have.” With Lydia’s thorough explanation and instructions on updates, Larson says the department is very happy since the implementation of the dashboards earlier this summer.
