TO: Honorable Mayor & Members of the North Port Commission
FROM: Peter D. Lear, CPA, CGMA, City Manager
TITLE: Approve Agreement with ImageTrend, Inc., a single-source procurement of replacement fire and medical incident reporting system at a cost of $73,748.43.
Recommended Action
Approve Agreement with ImageTrend, Inc., a single-source procurement of a replacement fire and medical incident reporting system at a cost of $73,748.43. The City Manager or designee may agree to renewals of the agreement term that do not increase compensation to vendor by more than 3% of the previous term’s price.
Background Information
On May 22, 2018, Commission approved an amendment to the Fire Rescue District and Emergency Medical Services-portion of the General Fund FY 2017-18 budget for the replacement of Fire Rescue’s current fire and medical incident reporting system, Firehouse Software. Fire Rescue is requesting replacement of the Firehouse Software system as we have been experiencing significant issues with its performance for more than a year and has increased since the sale by the last provider Conduent Government Systems to ESO Solutions, Inc. Since the sale, Fire Rescue personnel have expressed numerous concerns with connectivity and data reliability between their patient care reporting tablets and the ESO cloud system. Our fire inspectors are also stating problems with the syncing (i.e., upload and download) of inspection data and the ESO cloud. These concerns are impacting our emergency medical reporting operations and fire prevention records.
Fire Rescue and Information Technology staff have briefed the City Manager on our concerns, the criticality of the problems and the immediacy in its replacement. Those concerns were a part of the recent budget amendment to authorize the transfer of funds from reserves specifically for this expenditure. Additionally, we are working with the City Attorney’s Office for them to present a letter of concern to ESO Solutions to address the existing problems while we move towards a replacement. This letter is also to serve as a beginning point should additional legal action against ESO Solutions be necessary. Our goal is to sever our relationship with ESO Solutions prior to the beginning of the next fiscal year.
Fire Rescue personnel have researched and evaluated alternatives and have identified ImageTrend as the better system to meet our needs. Our paramedics trialed the system for a month using fictitious data (so as not to violate privacy rules) found the system user-friendly, compatible with our equipment and reliable. Of significant benefit with the ImageTrend system is the interoperability among our mutual-aid partners. Emergency Medical Services units in Charlotte and Sarasota counties currently use ImageTrend. Should either one of those units arrive prior to our ambulances and start a patient care report on their computer, ImageTrend is designed to share that specific report to our computers for completion. This prevents any lost data during the face-to-face briefings between their personnel and ours.
ImageTrend will also become the records management system for fire incident reporting, Apparatus and inventory management, transfer of incident data from the County computer-aided dispatch system, and business analytics for the statistical review of departmental operations. This latter component will be critical in the evaluation of our emergency response performance for the Insurance Services Office (ISO) inspections and fire accreditation.
Data from the Firehouse Software system will either be migrated to ImageTrend or archived, depending on the type of data and the ability of ImageTrend to match the data from Firehouse to their system. Data that is archived will be available in the cloud for the respective records’ retention schedule.
First year costs include fees for setup and the first year of license and hosting support for a cost of $73,748.43. Recurring, annual costs drop significantly to $16,614.30 with price increases each year starting year 2, not to exceed 3% of the price then currently in effect. The current cost of Firehouse for fire and medical incident reporting is $23,710 per year. The switch to ImageTrend is a savings of approximately $7,000 for the recurring fees.
Our Fire Prevention Division has reviewed a different system, MobileEyes, for their use. That product will be procured using a separate purchase order. The first-year cost of that system is $20,221; however, the annual, recurring costs drop to $13,239.
We believe the move away from Firehouse Software to ImageTrend and MobileEyes will increase our data reliability, accountability and usefulness for fire and medical incident and fire inspections records management into the future.
The City Attorney has approved to form and content.
Strategic Plan
Financially Responsible City Providing Quality Municipal Services
Financial Impact
Funds have been authorized in the FY 2017-18 amended Fire Rescue District and Emergency Medical Services-portion of the General Fund budgets for the purchase of a replacement fire and medical incident reporting system.
Procurement
Utilization of Sole Source guidelines per Sec. 2-407 of the City of North Port Procurement Code. ImageTrend, Inc. is the sole-provider of this system.
Attachments:
1. Agreement with ImageTrend, Inc.
2. ImageTrend, Inc. Quote
3. ImageTrend, Inc. Sole-Single Source Procurement Request Form
4. ImageTrend, Inc. Sole Source Letter dated March 27, 2018
5. City of North Port IT Approval Form
6. Florida Division of Corporations
Prepared by: Richard Berman
Department Director: Scott Titus