AdventHealth Migrates Mission-Critical Voice Communications to FirstNet

According to Urgentcomm, AdventHealth Central Florida has transitioned its mission-critical voice communications to FirstNet Rapid Response at over a dozen hospital campuses in a three-county region in anticipation of retiring its legacy land-mobile-radio (LMR) system by the end of the year.

Robert Francisco, the security operations manager for AdventHealth Central Florida, stated that his predecessor made the decision for the healthcare organization to implement broadband push-to-talk technology. This decision was made at the same time that Francisco was making a similar decision for Disney.

Francisco stated during a session at the recent APCO 2024 conference in Orlando, 

“The issue we were having was that the traditional land-mobile-radio [system] was not strong enough to reach from our dispatch center in Orlando to some of our outlying campuses,”

Francisco stated that the FirstNet offering did not present any coverage issues.

"The signal quality is exceptional," he stated.

Francisco stated that AdventHealth Central Florida initially relocated its security teams and EMS personnel, who had been experiencing communication difficulties in specific locations within the primary territory, which encompasses Orange, Osceola, and Seminole counties, as well as other regions of the state.

Francisco furthermore explained that FirstNet enables AdventHealth to utilize technology that enables dispatch to determine the location of personnel, provided that their broadband device is operational, in addition to push-to-talk services. Additionally, he stated that AdventHealth officers and other employees have the option of communicating via Wi-Fi networks in the event that cellular service is unavailable.

He also stated that the organization's substantial expenditures associated with enhancing its LMR system to accommodate its expanding requirements rendered it economically feasible to transition to FirstNet Rapid Response.