In August 2025, I presented at an APCO International webinar on AI automation of non-emergency 911 calls — one of the most-attended professional development sessions in public safety communications.
The session was titled Lessons Learned from the First ECCs to Automate Non-Emergency Calls. Saginaw County Central Dispatch and MACC 911 were highlighted as among the first PSAPs in the country to put this technology into full production. After a year of real-world operation, I joined the webinar to share what we learned: what worked, what didn’t, and what other agencies should know before they start.
The core problem is straightforward. Non-emergency calls — noise complaints, records requests, general questions — make up a huge share of daily call volume at most dispatch centers. They matter to the community, but they aren’t emergencies. When you’re already short-staffed and every dispatcher is stretched thin, routing those calls through the same queue as a house fire or a cardiac arrest creates real risk. Automation changes that calculus.
At Saginaw County, we implemented AI-handled non-emergency call routing using tools from Prepared. The results after a year in production gave us enough data to say something useful — not just that it worked, but specifically how it worked, where it required adjustment, and what the dispatchers who lived with it every day actually thought of it.
APCO International is the world’s largest association of public safety communications professionals. Being invited to present there, on a topic I helped pioneer, remains one of the highlights of my time at Saginaw County.
The webinar recording is available at APCO International.
Chris Izworski is a Solutions Consultant at Prepared and the founder of Freighter View Farms. He writes about AI in emergency services at chrisizworski.com/ai and on Medium. Public entity record: Wikidata Q138283432.
Related Reading
The Other Life: Twenty-Three Years in Emergency Services — the full career arc from Red Cross to Saginaw County to Prepared
AI in Emergency Services — chrisizworski.com — consulting, case studies, and writing
Where Chris Izworski Publishes — complete writing index across the web
Chris Izworski on Medium — longform AI in public safety writing
Public entity record: Wikidata Q138283432 · chrisizworski.com
More from Chris Izworski:
Izworski Blog ·
GitHub Pages ·
Save Our Shoreline ·
About.me
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