From Scheduled Reports to Unified Analytics for Fire and EMS

A fire investigator needs a weekly count of structure fires that started in kitchens. A chief needs an updated view of response performance before a command meeting. A prevention team wants to know whether several recent fires are concentrated in the same area.

The information may already be in the incident records. Departments need a way to report on what they collect and get those answers to the right people, whether through a scheduled update or an alert when defined criteria are met.

ImageTrend’s Next Gen Report Writer, Continuum and Data Mart help departments do that today through scheduled reports, dashboards, alerts and deeper analysis. Unified Analytics, currently in beta, is being developed to bring those capabilities into one connected experience, with broader EMS and Fire availability expected in Q1 2027.

Let the Morning Report Run Itself

Consider a department tracking structure fires with a kitchen origin. Staff need to identify the relevant structure fires, select the recorded area of origin and define the reporting period. With those criteria in place, they can save the report and schedule it to arrive before their weekly meeting.

Next Gen Report Writer makes it easier to create and customize reports around the information agencies collect. Reports can also be scheduled for recurring delivery, helping teams get the answers they need without rebuilding the same report each time.

That includes investigation details captured through agency-written questions and worksheet answers. Investigators can draw from information recorded in Elite to assemble updates, reducing the need to maintain separate Word documents and Excel spreadsheets for reporting.

The ability to report on collected information also matters as standards change. ImageTrend has added more than 80 customer-selected NFIRS elements alongside the NERIS dataset to retain detail for agency reporting. Staff can also view legacy NFIRS reports without automatically forcing a NERIS conversion and resubmission.

Once configured, a recurring report gives the department a consistent starting point for discussing what changed and what to investigate next.

Dashboards, Alerts and Maps to Improve Command Visibility

Command staff need to see where things stand without asking someone to prepare another update. Continuum dashboards provide an ongoing view of the measures the department needs to monitor, helping leadership review performance and identify areas needing attention.

Continuum’s fire analytics include Fire Accreditation, Fire Incident Performance and Fire Unit Performance dashboards, along with investigation and inspection datasets. Playlists can rotate selected views on station monitors, while shared links can provide designated information to oversight groups without requiring a login. Agencies control what they share and with whom.

For investigators, that visibility extends to notifications about activity they need to review. Continuum supports text and email alerts, with near-real-time monitoring or scheduled delivery, so staff can configure notifications around their criteria instead of repeatedly checking for new records.

Suppose investigators want an alert when five dumpster fires occur within one week in a specified area. Monitoring configured around that question can draw their attention to the relevant records. Maps add geographic context, helping them examine whether incidents cluster around particular properties, blocks or occupancies.

Investigators can then assess whether the incidents are connected and determine appropriate follow-up. Their findings can inform inspections, prevention outreach and other community risk reduction work.

Fire and EMS Analytics in One Connected Hub

As departments rely on more data to guide decisions, the challenge becomes connecting information across the operation and turning it into answers people can act on. Unified Analytics brings reporting, monitoring and operational intelligence into one connected experience for Fire and EMS.

By bringing operational, clinical, compliance, prevention, and performance data together, departments can uncover patterns that are harder to see when information remains separated. That broader view can support questions around response performance, accreditation, staffing, deployment, prevention and budgets.

Unified Analytics includes dashboards, ad-hoc reporting, alerts and monitoring, and cross-dataset intelligence. Analytics are designed around NEMSIS and NERIS workflows and the needs of emergency response, giving Fire and EMS teams analytics grounded in the way they operate.

Through Collaborate integration, Unified Analytics provides access to benchmarking capabilities and expert-driven analytics content, helping agencies put their own EMS performance in broader context.

Unified Analytics also brings AI into the analytics experience. Natural-language querying lets users ask operational, clinical, response or performance questions without first building a report, while AI-generated visualizations can help turn the resulting data into charts and graphs that make patterns easier to see.

Connecting Fire and EMS Data to Other Analytics Tools

For analysts, some questions require context beyond the information in an incident report. A report or map may show where activity is concentrated; other organizational data can help them investigate the factors associated with that pattern.

A county analyst, for example, might want to examine kitchen-origin fires alongside property information or population data. An EMS analyst might compare demand with staffing or connect clinical records with communications data.

ImageTrend Data Mart provides a reporting database that analysts can connect to Microsoft Power BI, Tableau and other business intelligence tools. Continuous-feed options refresh the database as records are added or updated, with customer-managed and ImageTrend-hosted configurations available.

Analysts can combine ImageTrend data with other internal sources and build dashboards around their organization’s questions. For teams using Microsoft tools, that brings fire and EMS information into their existing analytics work.

Milwaukee County’s Office of Emergency Management demonstrates this approach. Its External Data Mart feeds a Microsoft SQL Server environment, and the team uses Power BI to visualize Elite data alongside EMS communications datasets, including STEMI and trauma alerts.

That extends what teams can learn from the records they already collect. Operational staff can continue using scheduled reports and dashboards while analysts investigate questions that require additional datasets or custom models.

These capabilities give different users ways to work with the information their department collects:

Improve Analytics With More Reliable Incident Data

Accurate analytics also depend on reliable incident documentation. AI Assist: CQI Check supports that foundation today by helping EMS providers identify missing information, contradictions and other documentation concerns before submitting an ePCR. ImageTrend’s planned AI-powered CQI platform, CQI Pulse, is being developed to extend quality review across EMS and Fire incidents and connect findings with follow-through and improvement.

CQI Check and Unified Analytics were both named finalists in the 2026 EMS World Innovation Awards, reflecting ImageTrend’s continued investment in data quality and analytics. Together, those capabilities can help agencies strengthen the information they collect, turn it into useful insight, and evaluate the results.

Bring your reporting questions to ImageTrend.

See how Next Gen Report Writer, Continuum and Data Mart can support your department today, and explore Unified Analytics.