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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02/07/2011 TECH February 7, 2011 MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE TECHNOLOGIES BOARD HELD ON February 7, 2011 TheRegular Session of the TECHNOLOGIES BOARD of The Colony, Texas was called to order at 6:42 pm on the 7th of February, 2011 at CITY HALL, in the City Managers Conference Room, City Hall, 6800 MAIN STREET, THE COLONY, TEXAS, with the following roll call: B i 11 Swink present Jeff Montgomery present Andrew Turner present Stephen Hoffman absent Joye Grube present Lyle Snyder absent Tirn Tomlinson absent Allen Harris, Council Liaison absent With four out of seven members present a quorum was established and the following items were discussed. 1.0 Call Meeting to Order: 6:42 P.M. Meeting called to order at 6:42 1.1 Announcements Bruce Maker, IT Manager for the City of The Colony, announced that this would be Betty Pamplin's, Recording Secretary for the Technology Board, last meeting. Christie Copling, CVB Coordinator for the City of The Colony, will be taking over beginning with the next meeting due to the IT Department being transferred under the Communications department. Diane Baxter is now the Director over the IT department. Mr. Maker announced that the volunteer banquet is scheduled for February 17th at this time. 2.0 DISPOSITION OF MINUTES Acceptance of Technologies Board Minutes for a meeting held on January 10, 2011. 3.0 CITIZEN INPUT None 4.0 AGENDA ITEMS 1 February 7, 2011 4.1 Receive presentation of past, current, and future visions of Information Technology. Mr. Maker gave a presentation on the past, current, and future projects of the IT department. Mr. Swink asked what the timeline is for getting the new website implemented. Mr. Maker said they are hoping to have it live in March. Mr. Swink asked what the ETA is on the Police Department remodel. Mr. Maker said he believes it is approximately 120 days out. Mr. Swink asked if the data center will go in before the remodel is complete. Mr. Maker said it is currently there but they will be expanding it. Mr. Swink asked if the windows server upgrade will be going from 2003 to 2008. Mr. Maker said that is correct we are currently on windows server 2003. Mr. Swink asked how big of a deal that will be. Mr. Maker said in this situation it is a big deal because they are entering all of the data over again. Mr. Turner asked if they are starting fresh with the 2008 environment. Mr. Maker said yes. Mr. Swink asked if the separate domains were to keep Public Safety separate from the rest of the City. Mr. Maker said there would be at least two with Public Safety on one and everyone else on the other. There might possibly be a third but he has not decided on that at this time. 4.2 Receive presentation, discuss, and approve new electronic EMS system for Fire Department. Mr. Maker introduced Van Weese, Assistant Fire Chief for the City of The Colony, and Scott Thompson, Fire Chief for the City of The Colony. Mr. Maker explained that the Fire Department is looking to purchase an electronic patient care reporting system that consists of a Toughbook the paramedics carry with them when dealing with patients. It interfaces with the Police Departments CAD system. When dispatch enters the information it will be transferred to the Toughbook. The Toughbook has a touch screen interface and fill in the blank information screens. Currently the paramedics are doing handwritten reports and then they enter them into the Firehouse system. They are hoping to implement an interface between Firehouse and the new system. With the new EPCRS billing will be done electronically. Van Weese explained that the system will speed up patient care because of the ease of use of the system. The system will release a lot of the billing work for the Fire Department Administrative Assistant. The system is web based and will send the information to the billing company. Mr. Weese said they looked at several different systems and attended the EMS conference in Dallas. Mr. Weese explained that a lot of the vendors insist that you also use their billing company and the system they are looking at from ESO does allow them to continue with the current billing vendor. Mr. Weese said several surrounding cities use the ESO system currently. Mr. Thompson said they involved several operational people in the process of choosing software that makes sense to them because they are the ones that will be using the software. Mr. Swink asked if they were all ok with the choice of ESO. Mr. Weese said this was the software that was chosen by the end users out of the three demonstrations they were shown. Ms. Grube asked what the learning curve is on the program. Mr. Weese said it was 3 to 6 months. Ms. Grube asked if they will be doing double work during that time. Mr. Weese said they would be. Mr. Weese said one of the nice features of the 2 February 7, 2011 software is that it will save information from repeat patients and save time collecting information from those patients. Ms. Grube asked if they would ask the patients if they are still on XYZ medication at that time. Mr. Weese said they would. Mr. Thompson said they would get a lot of support from the billing company and neighboring cities on implementation. They will have redundancy until everyone is comfortable with it. Mr. Swink asked how well the book of protocols would be implemented. Mr. Weese said within 30 days it should be implemented and up and running for training. Mr. Swink asked if the hard copy protocols will be maintained. Mr. Weese said they will always be maintained. Mr. Thompson said that for the long term they are looking to create an EMS Lieutenant position to handle quality control to improve efficiency. This person would be able to pull data from the system to help do that. Mr. Swink asked if any of the neighboring fire departments that are using the software have seen an increase in efficiency. Mr. Thompson said it is not only for efficiency but for consistency and uniformity as far as each call being documented. Ms. Grube asked if the vendor will be hosting the data storage. Mr. Weese said yes. Mr. Turner asked what would happen if the connectivity to their storage was lost. Mr. Maker said they have air cards and synchronization. Mr. Turner asked what would happen in the case of a natural disaster and everything is down would the data be stored on the Toughbook. Mr. Maker said it would be. Mr. Turner asked if the vendor provides the tablets or if we have to purchase them. Mr. Maker said we would have to provide them. Mr. Turner asked if the vendor had a recommendation on the tablets. Mr. Maker said we are looking at Panasonic Toughbooks with a turn around touch screen. Mr. Swink asked if they are standard. Mr. Maker said the screen makes them not standard. Mr. Thompson said the biggest problem would be with the Toughbooks falling off of cots and the air cards breaking. Mr. Montgomery asked if the air cards are external. Mr. Maker said they are at this point and he will look into an internal air card. Currently Verizon has the best coverage in The Colony for the air cards and they offer external. Mr. Turner asked if the patches are provided remotely. Mr. Maker said they will be because it is a web based application. Mr. Swink asked if the data is stored remotely. Mr. Maker said yes. Mr. Swink asked if only the Fire Department would be able to access it. Mr. Weese said yes due to HIPPA. Mr. Montgomery asked if the data stored locally on the Toughbooks would be encrypted. Mr. Maker said he could not answer- that question at this time. Mr. Turner asked if any cross information could be done between cities. Mr. Maker said no due to HIPPA laws. Mr. Swink asked if that was a legal restriction. Mr. Thompson said it is due to HIPPA. Mr. Thompson said they will be adding the fire side to the current CAD system but not for anything outside of the City. Mr. Turner asked if they use hard maps. Mr. Thompson said that is correct. Mr. Maker said the Toughbooks will give them GIS capabilities. Mr. Swink asked if they have to back up Carrollton do they just look up by physical address. Mr. Thompson said yes. Mr. Swink asked when the system will be implemented. Mr. Weese said it will be implemented right away. Mr. Thompson said they received a grant for a portion of the project. Ms. Grube asked if the software is a purchase or a yearly subscription. Mr. Weese said it is a subscription. Ms. Grube asked if this is something that would have to be built into the annual budget. Mr. Weese said that is correct. Mr. Swink asked if the updates are automatic. Mr. Weese said yes. Mr. Maker said after three to four years it will turn into a maintenance mode with an annual maintenance fee. Mr. 3 February 7, 2011 Montgomery recommended the internal wireless and Windows 7. Mr. Maker said that is what he was looking to get. Bill Swink made a motion to approve the ESO software. Jeff Montgomery seconded the motion. Motion carries. 5.0 ADJOURNMENT With no further business, the meeting adjourned at 7:33 p.m. APPROVED: Andrew mer, Chairman Betty Pam+in, Recordin. Secretary .i k f 4