ESO Fire RMS

FIREHOUSE Software Review

Comments: The benefits are we are able to do our charts and QA/QI in a timely manner and we are able to use the scheduling portion and setup times easily as well for scheduling.

Pros:

We use the firehouse software for our scheduling and for our reporting and it is the best.

Cons:

None needed the software meets all our expectations

Does a lot of things pretty good

Pros:

I'm currently using the 7.x version and not FHnet. I have only played with FHnet and cannot give guidance. I also use the client provided server model and have not used the hosted services offered. Admin side is fairly straight forward and easy to use. They used a proprietary software for reporting in the older version based on FireFox. Crystal knowledge will go a long way with this. They have conferences every year and they teach you everything you might need to know about reporting (the best reporting courses I have ever taken). The newest version is using SQL reporting which is free and has a lot of youtube videos. The conference again will help with this. User side is straight forward, but a little clunky. Easy to set custom rules and require fields when you want. Interfaces with many other software packages including: Kronos Workforce TeleStaff, OSSI CAD, Rescue One CE provider. If you have a little database knowledge, you can do just about anything. Lots of task that can be set up automatically. Automated reports. It is easy to import bulk data and export bulk data from the software directly. Also have a ipad version for inspections.

Cons:

Tech support usually makes you leave a message, but generally calls back within a few hours. Started using other software for scheduling, truck and SBCA checks because they are easier. Did not like the EMS package offered. They could do very little customization. When I asked about a field that would be required by my region, they stated that not enough people wanted it so they would not do it. I would say the 9 county region around Houston, Texas as being a very large group of people.

Work with this program every 3rd shift for charting purposes

Pros:

Prior to other programs becoming more readily available FH had everything a user could want in charting because nothing really existed pre-hospital. Now with programs catching up and surpassing FH, FH has not continued to keep up with the times. There is not much to look at for Pros outside the fact it is still #1 for NFIRS reports only because it is FIREHOUSE, it should be good at that.

Cons:

Just about everything in this program, I apologize for being harsh but it has been bought and sold many times now and the development and upkeep of the software has fallen by the far wayside. Customer service can take up to months to respond and I believe only because you emailed them enough times. There is no way to truly modify the fields you want to modify even though that was a portion of their sales pitch. The program loses data as you are typing through your chart so we have learned to avoid certain "automation" buttons. This once great program has fallen quite far from its original design.

Great customization

Comments: We used Firehouse for 5 years. It was great for putting data in and getting it out but could cause other issues.

Pros:

The ability to make your own reports was great. Also, you could set certain questions to make other questions be asked. This made it easy to be able to get as much information from the data inputter as possible.

Cons:

There was a little much customization on some stuff and could cause other issues if you didn't know what was being changed.

Firehouse is meeting our needs.

Comments: Effectively runs our fire department.

Pros:

Locally hosted and self managed. Light on server and workstation resources. Reliable and stable software. This application has lots of options and features. Support seems to be getting better and better.

Cons:

This software has a bit of an older look and feel. Application is very hard to use on a mobile device. Lots of training required to effectively use the software.