ProQA® Paramount marks a significant point in the advance of PDC software.
Released this year, ProQA Paramount is more than the next step up the mountain in a long line of Priority Dispatch Corporation (PDC) software used in more than 1,500 control rooms worldwide.
“We’ve accomplished a significant benchmark in Paramount,” said Tom Knorr, PDC manager of software development and quality assurance. “Paramount builds on 20 years of software engineering experience and customer review. This will carry dispatch into the next 10 years, if not longer.”
Paramount goes to the core of ProQA® software. The focus shifts from simply changing the user experience to enhancing the user experience. The PDC research and development team reconfigured the workstation, server, and database. The proven call and user interface are unchanged, helping make user transition seamless.
But that’s just the tip of the mountain.
PDC Technical Support Manager Chip Hlavacek said the new technology and capabilities allow the addition of long-requested features: failover capability even when all servers go down, expanded text fields, interactive Rule of Nines diagram, smart PDIs, automatic updates, no dongle on the workstation, and user-set cursor priority with a code level.
“Cursor priority gives agencies the ability to change the default recommended choice when multiple codes are highlighted,” Hlavacek. “They have the control.”
Knorr credits Paramount’s artificial intelligence for maximizing success in dispatch and response.
“We’re no longer processing information in a linear style,” he said. “Paramount can perceive actions based on caller feedback. Response is calculated in real-time.”
In addition to the new and improved core highlights, the ProQA Paramount interface Xlerator™ coordinates data flow across applications. It enhances a CAD’s capacity to capture real-time medical, fire, and police data while maintaining a simultaneous data string to a third-party application such as FirstWatch or PSiam. The same data automatically feeds into the AQUA™ Quality Assurance software.
And don’t worry about the time element in relation to interface changes and CAD release cycles. PDC created developmental builds of ProQA Paramount for CADs in April 2009 and sent multiple alerts to CAD developers announcing Paramount and providing technical specifications. PDC is also providing instructional webinars to shorten the learning curve and hasten implementation.
“It’s all here,” said Brett Williams, PDC software trainer and CAD liaison. “ProQA will always be the standard in a complex triage system and at the end of the day, in an emergency scenario, that’s what matters.”
