Apex Mobile's "Digital Roll Call" Features Help Increase Officer Safety During The Continuing COVID-19 Concerns

FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif., July 17, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Apex Mobile announces the launch of its Apex IRIS "Digital Roll Call" features. Given the high importance of maintaining officer safety amid concerns about COVID-19 spread in today's climate, many agencies are struggling to efficiently communicate the vital roll call information while minimizing potential virus exposure to staff.

"We are working hard to help protect government employees during the COVID-19 pandemic while also helping to streamline interagency communication and promoting officer safety," said Apex Mobile CEO, Joe Ramirez. "That is why we added "Digital Roll Call" features to our interagency communication platform, Apex IRIS."

Before police officers, troopers, deputies, firefighters, EMTs, and correctional officers begin the start of their shifts, they must report to what's called "Roll Call." This very important briefing informs these public safety officials about what the shift before them encountered, and often this information is delivered in an in-person meeting where hard copies of documents are handed out to attendees. Often agencies employ just enough personnel to cover each shift, and if one employee was unknowingly infected with COVID-19 and exposed their coworkers to the virus, it would be difficult for many agencies to maintain adequate staff coverage during the subsequent weeks to months. This is because if a staff member exposed others to the COVID-19 virus during a roll call meeting, every employee for that shift--including any employee that came in contact with the infected official before their shift--will all need to be quarantined for approximately 13 days while being tested. If infected, then these public safety officials will remain in quarantine until they finally test negative by a COVID-19 certified medical facility. This could create a significant shortage of qualified staff members available to safely work, which could have potentially devastating effects on the agency's ability to meet public safety needs.

The Apex IRIS "Digital Roll Call" features provide each public safety official the ability to access all of the roll call information digitally. The content is available at their fingertips at any time, and without the need for handing out paper documents or trying to meet in odd locations to manage social distancing.

Government municipalities will have access to their daily shift turnover reports, daily crime stats, bulletins, active directories, agency message boards, agency updates, extra job boards, and whatever they may need to have customized.

One of the most exciting aspects of the Digital Roll Call feature is that each BOLO ("Be On the Lookout") PDF uploaded into the Apex IRIS mobile application can be tagged into categories like robbery, burglary, vehicle theft, etc. The text in the PDFs are automatically indexed, making them searchable--so if a BOLO included the text "red bike" and an officer was doing a search for all BOLO's that included "red bike," then that BOLO would appear as part of the search--even if it was an older document, that if not digital, would likely have been long discarded.

The Digital Roll Call features are just one of many helpful tools designed by Apex Mobile to enhance communication between law enforcement agencies and the public they serve. Mobile apps can be extremely valuable tools for community policing. Apps integrate seamlessly into an agency's community policing and engagement plan, enhancing communication efforts and making them more effective and efficient.

Apex Mobile currently works with police agencies across the US and Canada to provide community engagement and internal public safety communication mobile applications and web portals. Apex client agencies include LA County Sheriff (CA), LAPD (CA), Bergen County Sheriff (NJ), Kent County Sheriff (MI) and New Jersey State Highway Patrol.

Additional Apex Mobile services include CivicSocial (http://www.civicsocial.com) and Lighthouse Health & Wellness (http://www.lighthousehw.org).

CivicSocial.com is a free tool to help time-crunched government and public safety PIOs and social media managers create quality branded social media and marketing materials for their agencies.

Lighthouse Health & Wellness is a free resource that provides first responders and those that support them confidential and anonymous access to health and wellness information.-

SOURCE Apex Mobile