AdventHealth Central Florida migrates voice to FirstNet Rapid Response, prepares to retire LMR system

AdventHealth Central Florida has migrated its mission-critical voice communications to FirstNet Rapid Response at more than a dozen hospital campuses in a three-county area as the organization prepares to retire its legacy land-mobile-radio (LMR) system by the end of the year.

Robert Francisco, security operations manager for AdventHealth Central Florida, said the decision for the healthcare organization to utilize broadband push to talk was made by his predecessor—during a time when Francisco was making a similar choice for Disney.

“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 said during a session at the recent APCO 2024, which was conducted in Orlando.

Coverage was not an issue for the FirstNet offering, according to Francisco.

“The signal quality is great,” he said.

AdventHealth Central Florida first migrated its security teams and its EMS personnel, which had been troubled by the lack of communications capabilities when operating in certain locations in the primary territory—an area serving Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties—as well as other parts of the state, Francisco said.

In addition to push-to-talk services, utilizing FirstNet lets AdventHealth leverage technology that allows dispatch to know the location of personnel, as long as their broadband device is on, Francisco said. And if cellular service is unavailable for some reason, AdventHealth officers and other employees still have the option of communication via Wi-Fi networks, he said.

Francisco said migrating to FirstNet Rapid Response also made economic sense, given the considerable expenses associated with upgrading the organization’s LMR system to meet its growing needs.

“The number that I was given to continue our service under the traditional LMR system—upgrade the technology and infrastructure at current locations, not install new infrastructure at our new hospital that we’re building literally every year—was in the $3 million-plus range,” Francisco said. “With this, my device is free, and I pay $68 per month per device for the smartphone.

“And I don’t have to maintain [a network]. There’s no [new] infrastructure. We already have the cellular DAS at every single hospital; it’s an automatic input into our hospitals. There is no separate radio company—whether it’s a third party or not—that needs to come out and do a site assessment, which costs money. It’s all just turn it on and go.”

And the LMR business case gets worse when devices—about $1,000 per radio, with batteries—and support costs are included, he said.

Francisco said he has been told that AdventHealth facilities in Kansas also are exploring a migration to a FirstNet push-to-talk service, but he acknowledged that it might not be the best choice for all enterprises.

“It is not for every organization,” Francisco said. “It is not for every communications platform. It is not going to be a 100% swap from what you’re used to to a brand-new system, and it’s going to be hunky-dory, A-OK. You have to think about what you’re doing as an organization, where you want to go as that organization, and then decide, ‘Is this the right spot?’

“That’s really it. Keep in mind what you want to do and what you’re looking for. Just do your research.”