Wellness Through Capacity: Rethinking Technology's Role in 9-1-1

By Special Guest Author

Samantha Hawkins, CMCP

ECC Engagement Lead, ThisGen 911

One thing that has become increasingly clear to me is that so many of the conversations happening around technology, AI, staffing, burnout, wellness, and performance in 9-1-1 all lead back to the same challenge: capacity.

It is not that trainers, supervisors, quality assurance evaluators, and leaders do not care. In many cases, they care deeply. The reality is that they are often exhausted, overextended, and carrying administrative burdens that continually pull them away from the most important part of their role: supporting people. Coaching conversations become rushed. Mentorship opportunities disappear. Meaningful check-ins get replaced by tasks that simply cannot wait. Over time, the impact is felt throughout the center. People stop feeling truly seen. They stop feeling supported. They begin operating in survival mode rather than growth mode. As an industry, we talk frequently about staffing shortages, wellness initiatives, retention challenges, and the promise of new technologies. Yet I believe we are missing a more important question: What are we doing to help public safety professionals reclaim the capacity needed to connect with, develop, and support one another?

And for those of us building products and services for the 9-1-1 community, what responsibility do we have in helping create that space? That question should guide every conversation we have about innovation.

So, let's start with a difficult one: Is the technology we're building actually helping with wellness? Is it part of the solution, or is it simply becoming another component of the problem? With all of the excitement surrounding AI, that question matters more than ever. And I say that as someone who works for a company developing AI solutions for the 9-1-1 industry. The conversation cannot simply be about what technology can do. It has to be about whether we're building technology that addresses the real needs of the people doing the work and the realities of the environment they work in every day. Not every challenge in 9-1-1 requires an AI solution. Sometimes the most meaningful innovation is the one that removes friction, simplifies a workflow, eliminates unnecessary administrative work, or gives a supervisor ten extra minutes to coach an employee. Technology should not be built simply because it is possible. It should be built because it meaningfully improves the experience of the people it is intended to serve.

When it comes to wellness, that means asking harder questions. If we're creating AI solutions, are we making sure those solutions are resilient, stable, and reliable? Do they hold up under the pressure of mission-critical work? Can they withstand the unpredictability, complexity, and constant demands that define emergency communications? The best technology should not create additional work for the people who rely on it. Behind the scenes, it may require continuous support, monitoring, and improvement from the commercial partner delivering it. But for the person sitting at the console, it should feel seamless. It should feel dependable. It should quietly do its job so they can focus on theirs. Technology that requires constant workarounds, troubleshooting, or babysitting does not reduce stress. It adds to it.

We also have a responsibility to ask whether the solutions we're creating are truly accessible. Are we designing only for the largest centers with the biggest budgets, or are we building with the entire 9-1-1 ecosystem in mind? The reality is that a small center serving a rural community may face many of the same challenges as a large metropolitan agency. Staffing shortages, training demands, employee burnout, and increasing call complexity do not exist only in large centers. Yet resources often do. As technology providers, we have to be mindful of that reality. If the solutions we create are financially out of reach for smaller agencies, we risk widening the very gaps we are trying to close. We risk creating a future where the centers with the greatest needs have the least access to the tools that could help them. When we fail to make innovation accessible, we become part of the problem. We reinforce a cycle where understaffed and under-resourced centers are left trying to do more with less while the benefits of advancement remain concentrated elsewhere. That responsibility extends beyond individual products. It should also influence how we think about partnerships, collaboration, and regional approaches to support. We should be looking for opportunities to help agencies share resources, learn from one another, and access solutions that might otherwise be unattainable on their own. If our goal is to strengthen the profession, then our thinking cannot stop at the boundaries of a single agency.

At the same time, the best technology should never diminish the role of the human behind the headset. It should strengthen it. That means ensuring there is always room for human judgment, human intervention, and human oversight. No technology should feel rigid or detached from the people using it. It should be adaptable. It should be configurable. It should reflect the operational realities, culture, and priorities of the agency it serves. Even the most advanced AI should remain moldable in the hands of the professionals doing the work. The goal is not to force people to adapt to technology. The goal is to shape technology around the people it is meant to support. There should always be checks and balances that allow humans to review, validate, and override automated processes when necessary. Without that, we are not empowering people. We are simply replacing one form of burden with another. Whether we're building training platforms, quality assurance systems, assistive technologies, or AI-powered workflows, the purpose should remain the same. Technology should automate the tasks that do not require human expertise so that people can spend more time on the work that does.

The greatest value of automation is not efficiency for efficiency's sake. It is the opportunity to return time and capacity to the things only humans can provide: coaching, mentoring, developing others, exercising judgment, building trust, and caring for one another. If wellness is ultimately about restoring capacity, then the technologies we build should be measured by the same standard. Are we giving people more time, more support, and more room to be human? Or are we simply asking them to adapt to one more system? For those of us building products and services for the 9-1-1 community, that is not just a design question. It is a responsibility.

About the Author:

Samantha Hawkins, CMCP, is a passionate 9-1-1 instructor, speaker, and former telecommunicator with over a decade of experience behind the headset. She has supported and trained professionals in eight emergency communications centers across seven states. She is a former Chair of APCO International’s Editorial Committee and currently serves as the ECC Engagement Lead at ThisGen 911, a technology firm specializing in end-to-end solutions to support training, hiring, and quality assurance and strengthen the instinctive, life-saving skills of 9-1-1 telecommunicators. Samantha frequently teaches on-site at ECCs across the country and presents virtually on topics including effective training techniques, leadership development in 9-1-1, CTO preparation, and wellness in the ECC.

About ThisGen 911:

ThisGen 911 is an AI-powered workforce readiness platform built specifically for 911 and emergency communications centers. The platform provides end-to-end solutions to help ECCs improve hiring, training, and quality assurance through science-backed pre-hire assessments, high-fidelity AI training simulations, and automated QA tools designed to reflect the real-world demands of emergency communications.

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