Control rooms  |  2024-02-08

St John WA Starts to Employ Omnitronics omnicore Enterprise Dispatch to run Ambulance Services Across Western Australia.

Curated by: Gert Jan Wolf - Editor-in Chief for The Critical Communications Review

The world's largest ambulance service in terms of geographic reach, St. John WA (SJWA), has started implementing the ground-breaking Omnitronics omnicore Enterprise Dispatch system. The service is currently operational with the State Operations Center and throughout Metropolitan Operations.

SJWA selected and installed this cutting-edge dispatch system in late 2023. With over 236,000 hours of volunteer support, SJWA offers Western Australians first-rate emergency medical services. The omnicore Enterprise Dispatch system significantly improves their communication capabilities, underscoring the critical role that technology plays in providing communities with effective and efficient emergency services.

Throughout the 2.5 million square kilometer state, the non-profit organization provides day and night assistance to individuals through 17 distinct programs and 196 ambulance locations.

Omnitronics has continuously upgraded to access the most cutting-edge dispatch technology on the market since the company's founding in 2008. Omnicore Enterprise Dispatch, their third Omnitronics dispatch system, went operational in late 2023. It is housed in virtual machines, with a backup site located 26 kilometers distant in Wangara, Western Australia, and a primary server located in Belmont.

Although Tait base stations are used by both Metro and Country Channels via the DFSI or 4-Wire E&M interface, remote sites can access PTT via satellite thanks to a high availability omniGateP25 gateway cluster. This will provide several priority communication pathways, such as satellite, 4G connections, or radio channels, for rural ambulances operating in distant areas.

As a longstanding client, we are happy that Omnitronics have once again provided us with the latest cutting-edge radio dispatch technology and support us in communicating with both local and remote sites from our centralised operations centres,

says St John WA Radio Communications Manager Ray Pullen.

In addition, a custom developed CAD interface for omnicore Dispatch sends an alert and message for CAD job dispatch information directly to the user’s radios ensuring no job is missed when the paramedics are away from the in-vehicle CAD terminals.  A voice recorder is also integrated into the system.

Omnitronics CEO John Jordan adds:

The capability to provide custom engineered functionalities for our dispatch systems gives users like St John WA the opportunity to design a system to their specific organisational requirements. We are pleased to be able to offer them exactly what they need, so they can focus on their mission: Saving Lives.