Co-authored by Marcus Edwards and the Western Fire Chiefs Association
Community risk reduction has grown well past inspections and smoke alarm installs, and the programs that hold up share a handful of practices any department can copy. Chiefs already know that crews run non-emergent calls every day in every department. This post covers how to build the program behind those calls so that crews use it and leadership can defend it.
The Western Fire Chiefs Association and Stationwise recently convened a panel moderated by WFCA CEO Chief Mark Niemeyer, with Asst. Chief Mike Binney and Erin Bravo of West Metro Fire Rescue and Stationwise CEO Marcus Edwards. Asst. Chief Binney helped build West Metro's mobile integrated health analytics platform and referral system, and Erin is its Community Risk Reduction Manager. Their answers add up to six practices.
Erin explained that community education used to hang its hat on contact counts, and contacts say little about what was prevented. She described claims about everything that did not happen as data that "doesn't sit right with anybody." Her approach is to name a risk, choose an intervention, and define what a reduction looks like.
"What we're actually trying to do is identify risks and intervene to reduce those. And that's measurable."
Erin Bravo, Community Risk Reduction Manager, West Metro Fire Rescue
She said naming risks helps West Metro be more proactive and get out into the community in a way it hasn't before. Programs built on requests only reach residents who already know to ask for a smoke alarm or a home assessment, which leaves out a huge population who have no idea they could use these programs.
Chief Niemeyer saw the effect on funding as a chief in Meridian, Idaho. Smoke detector installs, AED placement, and CPR classes ran as separate efforts until he grouped them under one name, Heart Safe Meridian.
"As soon as we named it, the money started flowing pretty readily, because every city councilor and fire district commissioner wants to support a program like that as opposed to just siloed efforts."
Chief Mark Niemeyer, CEO, Western Fire Chiefs Association
Erin described what happens when each program carries its own form. Work like leaving night lights or shoveling a driveway never reached the data. She added that when information changes on one form, you end up updating 16 of them. West Metro narrowed the list to the one form every home visit already requires.
"Anytime you go into someone's home, we need a liability form, whether that's to change batteries or install something or provide them with some sort of assessment. We're currently using our liability form as a capture-all. They know one place to go to provide us with the data to get the liability form signed off, and then they can just list all the things that they did that day at that person's home."
Erin Bravo, Community Risk Reduction Manager, West Metro Fire Rescue
The same problem shows up from the technology side. When checklists, specialty units, and individual programs each use their own form tool, someone has to merge them into one coherent database, and most agencies across the US do not have analysts to do it. Chief Niemeyer recalled crews saving forms to their own desktops, where they were outdated within three years.
A form only works if crews fill it out. Erin said West Metro puts a QR code on everything crews hand out.
"So all they have to do is open their phone and touch some buttons and it's done. We've reduced how much typing they need to do."
Erin Bravo, Community Risk Reduction Manager, West Metro Fire Rescue
She hears that she is babying crews, and her answer is that she wants them to do it right. She said West Metro was waiting for technology to catch up on its side, and in the meantime the team stays "cognizant of the way that we're formulating these things, so it's as easy as possible."
Erin said leadership sets how crews receive this work. A captain who recently moved into risk reduction at West Metro answers "No, I chose it" when people ask whether he was volunteered, and she called that verbalizing "a huge part of it." She also frames the work around what it does for crews. It aims to reduce fatigue and put crews on calls that are less severe. She pointed to a kid's bike crash where the child is wearing a helmet the fire department provided, which she hoped would be a far less traumatic call than one without.
Asst. Chief Binney said the results have to be translated into something crews can feel.
"If you translate things into terms of what people can feel in their own lives, that's where you get buy-in."
Mike Binney, Asst. Chief, West Metro Fire Rescue
His example comes from West Metro's mobile integrated health program, where repeat 911 calls from people who worked with a nurse practitioner or PA dropped 72% over the next six months. Asst. Chief Binney said crews at the busy stations feel that drop, because they are no longer going out to the same person over and over again.
Chief Niemeyer, who was a fire chief for 15 years, described the resource list he kept in an Excel spreadsheet. It never stayed updated, and crews did not know where to turn when they got to the call.
Asst. Chief Binney said referral practices fall apart at the integration point. He added that a referral process built into a platform crews already use has appeal, since a new firefighter might carry 20-something different logins. Erin's answer for West Metro is one page on the department website, so there is a single place to update. She also stays in touch with community partners to confirm they are still taking referrals, including the American Red Cross, which West Metro refers residents to for CPR.
"If you're on paper, get it digital. We have our website now that we are using as an internal posting where our mental health resources and all that stuff is there. No matter where they're trying to access it, it's going to that page, and that's the only point that we need to update."
Erin Bravo, Community Risk Reduction Manager, West Metro Fire Rescue
Erin was candid that keeping referral resources current has yet to be answered, and she called it difficult to sustain at any level.
Chief Niemeyer described the budget problem plainly. A grant funds a program, the money runs dry, and the chief has to go back to council or district commissioners to justify more, because "nothing we do is free."
The staffing system is where those hours already live. Stationwise automates time cards and how they reach payroll.
"We automatically apply a lot of those project tracking codes for grants for FEMA and reimbursement agencies or when you're sending folks out on deployments. All of that can be automated."
Marcus Edwards, CEO and Co-Founder, Stationwise
That lets a chief see in real time what the department is spending in hours, and for some departments the fully loaded cost in dollars, including the higher cost of sending or backfilling with more senior staff. Hours tracked by project code give a chief a count to bring to council.
For departments without an analytics team, Erin recommended a general risk assessment that quantifies risks in infrastructure, high-risk buildings, and high-risk populations.
"Develop one program that works towards reducing whatever risk you've established and just start with one. You don't have to go across all programs in every platform to get everything at one time to start. Learn from that one and keep building."
Erin Bravo, Community Risk Reduction Manager, West Metro Fire Rescue
A technology map is the other place to start, since many departments are paying for data sets without knowing what they get out of them. A named risk, one form, a phone tap, and a count of hours are enough to start a program that can defend itself.
Watch the full session here. Chief Niemeyer also pointed departments that want help with technology strategy and standards to the Western Fire Chiefs Association and Fire Tech U, which offers technology education for the fire service. This webinar is part of an ongoing Western Fire Chiefs Association and Stationwise series bringing fire service leaders together to discuss technology in the fire service.
