Cincinnati's Emergency Communications Center has landed a coveted international nod for police dispatch, a win city leaders say has been years in the making after a devastating 2018 emergency exposed serious flaws in the system. The new Accredited Center of Excellence designation signals that the 911 hub is now operating under strict, scripted call-taking and quality-assurance standards and puts Cincinnati in a relatively small club of high-performing dispatch centers.
According to the City of Cincinnati, the ECC is now the 41st Accredited Center of Excellence in Emergency Police Dispatch after meeting the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch Twenty Points of Accreditation and clearing an independent review. The city notes the ECC is the only police-dispatch ACE in Ohio and the surrounding region, and quotes Director Bill Vedra crediting a sustained, data-focused effort to sharpen how calls are handled.
Reporters touring the center found that adopting the IAED Priority Dispatch System has reshaped how emergencies are sorted. Call takers first determine whether a situation requires police, fire, or medical response, then work through structured interview scripts that pull out key details for crews in the field. Staff told WLWT the new setup has trimmed roughly four seconds from average call-processing time, and operators described intensive training to stay steady and reassuring when callers are at their most afraid.
Background: The Plush case and the push for reform
The recognition caps a reform drive that accelerated after the April 2018 death of 16-year-old Kyle Plush, who called 911 multiple times while trapped in a minivan but was not found in time. His family sued the city and reached a settlement that included funding for improvements and outside expert oversight of ECC operations. The Plush family has continued working with officials to keep tabs on changes at the call center. FOX19 has detailed the settlement terms and the ECC's multi-year improvement roadmap.
What ACE status requires
IAED accreditation is not a one-and-done plaque for the wall. Agencies seeking ACE status must complete a detailed self-study tied to the Twenty Points of Accreditation, submit past performance and compliance data, and go through a formal evaluation that can include a site visit. Once accredited, centers have to maintain performance through regular compliance reporting over a three-year term. The International Academies of Emergency Dispatch policy notes that accreditation can be placed into remediation if a center's numbers slip.
What comes next for Cincinnati
City officials say the ECC now plans to chase IAED accreditation for its medical and fire operations, and that hanging on to ACE status will require constant measurement and quarterly performance reporting. The center began using IAED protocols across police, fire, and medical in 2023 and runs a formal quality-assurance program that reviews calls and feeds into ongoing training. Its performance pages feature dashboards for call-answering and processing metrics that will underpin the compliance reports IAED expects as per the City of Cincinnati ECC.
Officials and front-line dispatchers stress that accreditation does not change how residents reach help: 911 is still the number to dial in an emergency. What has changed is the way information is pulled from callers and passed along, to get first responders clearer details more quickly when seconds really do matter. Reporting by WLWT found that dispatchers felt the standardized protocols left them better equipped to give firm instructions and relay the right facts to crews racing to the scene.
