This year’s International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference (IACP 2019) underscored the trend of law enforcement professionals embracing technological innovation and smart tools in their day-to-day duties, while they simultaneously look to a next-generation of AI-powered solutions that will provide higher-quality enforcement outcomes, at lower cost, all while enhancing on the job safety.
Since 2016, Nuance has been proud to exhibit at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conference, this year held in Chicago. Each year I challenge my team to reflect on their discussions with law enforcement professionals, the trends taking shape in law enforcement, and ultimately how our exhibit and activities at IACP will reflect those learnings and conversations.
Our team was up to the challenge. In addition to our exhibit with dedicated “demo pods” showcasing Dragon Law Enforcement, we brought to life an initial vision of a frequent customer request – a glassed-in faux interview room featuring a “detective” interrogating a “suspect” about a fictitious liquor store robbery. As the two spoke, the dialogue merged instantly into a time-stamped transcript displayed on flat-panel displays. Once transcribed, the interview record can be exported, and keyword searched. While not yet a solution available to law enforcement, Nuance is offering a similar solution today in the healthcare sector with our ambient clinical intelligence technology that listens to and documents clinician-patient conversations. Interest from IACP attendees is high, with numerous inquiries to partner with Nuance and bring “the interview room of the future” to market. I invite you to view a clip of our vision from the IACP exhibit hall.
We were also privileged to moderate a panel, Alleviating Paperwork Burnout in Policing: Why Departments Need to Turn to New Police Reporting Tools featuring Chief Kyle Heagney of the Attleboro, MA police department and Captain Paul Williams of the San Bernardino, CA police department. Both brought to life their experiences relative to how the burden of mandated documentation has increased. For instance, budget pressures have forced officers to take on more administrative work, thus reducing the time they can actively “police,” increasing the potential risk to both officers and the community. As a result, law enforcement is looking to other document-intensive industries, like healthcare, as they adopt smart-tools to increase documentation quality while reducing costs. Many of the themes discussed on the panel are echoed in the 2019 Role of Technology in Law Enforcement Paperwork survey, the results of which were released in tandem with the IACP conference.
IACP 2019 represented another banner year for Nuance in law enforcement. We have been honored to hear first-hand how our natural speech and language understanding technology is making a difference for police officers, even as we share our learnings about challenges they face as the law enforcement profession becomes more document-intensive. We look forward to reconnecting with the community in New Orleans next year for IACP 2020!