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Valley Emergency Communications briefs council on rising call volumes and new NextGen911 tools
Summary
Valley Emergency presenters said the dispatch center handles roughly 1,000,000 calls annually and is piloting NextGen911 features (media receipt, video, AI language identification) to improve response and triage for mental-health and low-acuity calls.
Representatives of the Valley Emergency Communication Center briefed Cottonwood Heights council members on Tuesday about service demand, staffing and several technology upgrades intended to modernize 911 operations.
Amber Watterson, introduced as a fire commander and floor liaison, and Rosa Olivo, identified as the police-communications commander, said VEC serves 22 agencies, employs 147 staff, and handles a combined annual call volume of about one million contacts—roughly 600,000 nonemergency calls, about 250,000 911 calls, and many additional texts and administrative contacts. "Our call volume is climbing," Watterson told the council, citing population growth and an aging demographic that increases medical-call demand.
The presenters highlighted mental-health calls and "high utilizers"—people who repeatedly call for the same concerns—and acknowledged VEC currently lacks a robust triage pathway to divert certain calls to crisis- or telehealth-based responses. They said the center is actively working with Salt Lake County task forces and partners (MCOT, the VA, and a University of Utah intake center in South Salt Lake) to identify alternatives that would reduce emergency dispatch for low-acuity and mental-health calls.
Watterson described recently implemented NextGen911 features: the center can now receive media and video, send callers a link that allows them to show responders what they’re seeing, obtain turn-by-turn phone location data, and use AI to detect language and provide near-real-time interpretation and transcription. "The AI will indicate what language it is...AI can be actively interpreting what they're hearing on the phone and give us a transcription so we can begin the call," she said.
Council members praised the center’s training and technology plans and asked about partnerships that could divert nonemergency mental-health contacts away from emergency responders. VEC staff said work is ongoing to implement triage keywords and an alternate-response program over the next three years and to prepare for large events such as the Olympics.
What happens next: VEC staff will continue coordinating with county partners to pilot triage strategies; the council encouraged continued investment in training and technology to improve diversion and reduce unnecessary emergency response.
