Every 911 call on your campus, located and in your team’s hands.
A hospital campus is dozens of buildings, thousands of phones and a constant flow of patients, visitors and staff. 9Line alerts your security team when anyone on your property dials 911 from a cell phone, the calls your phone system never sees, and makes sure every 911 call from your phone system carries the building, floor and room and reaches your security team the moment it is dialed.
Talk to us about your campus
Tell us about your phone systems, your buildings and grounds, and who should know the moment someone dials 911.
9Line respects your privacy and will not sell or share your information with any other party.
The Challenge
A hospital is not a typical workplace, and neither is its 911 problem.
Most 911 planning assumes an office: a building or two, employees who know the address, and calls that come from desk phones. Healthcare breaks every one of those assumptions.
The address is a campus
A main street address does not help a responder looking for the third-floor ICU in the east tower. Health systems span towers, outpatient buildings, parking structures and clinics across town, and every 911 call needs the building, floor and room or zone.
Phones and people move
Shared phones sit at nursing stations and on carts, clinicians carry wireless devices across floors all shift, and administrators and telehealth providers work from home on Teams or Webex.
Two platforms at once
Many health systems run Cisco and Microsoft Teams side by side during a migration, and 911 has to work on both the whole way through.
Most callers use their own phones
Patients, visitors, families and contractors dial 911 from their cell phones. The wireless carrier sends that caller’s location to the 911 center and nobody else, so your security team usually never learns the call happened. Kari’s Law notifications only cover calls from your phone system.
Responders arrive without context
Even when security is notified, a bare alert says where, not what. A cardiac arrest, a fire and an armed visitor each need a different response before anyone reaches the door.
The Rules
The rules that apply to your phone system.
Hospital and clinic phone systems, whether Cisco Unified CM, Webex Calling, Microsoft Teams Phone or a hosted platform such as BroadWorks, count as multi-line telephone systems (MLTS) under federal law. Two laws set the requirements.
Kari’s Law
Any MLTS manufactured, imported, sold, leased or installed after February 16, 2020 must let users dial 911 directly, with no prefix, and must notify a central location such as a security desk when 911 is dialed, where technically feasible.
RAY BAUM’S Act
Every 911 call from an MLTS must carry a dispatchable location: the street address plus the details responders need to find the caller, such as building, floor and room. The rules took effect in 2021 and 2022 and cover remote and off-premises users as well as on-site phones.
What is at stake
FCC penalties are $10,000 per violation, plus $500 for each day the violation continues. In healthcare the larger cost is a delayed response: a patient safety and liability problem.
What the law does not cover
Neither law reaches personal cell phones. A visitor who dials 911 from their own phone on your campus is invisible to your phone system, which is the gap 9Line Pinpoint closes.
Read the plain-English guide to Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act and what counts as a dispatchable location.
How 9Line Helps
Visibility into every 911 call on your property, and compliance for your phone system.
9Line Pinpoint: the 911 calls your phone system never sees
Draw geofences around your towers, outpatient buildings, parking structures and grounds. When anyone dials 911 from a cell phone inside one, your security team is alerted right away with the caller’s location, including altitude, so responders know which floor to go to. Pinpoint also sends your security team’s contact information to the 911 center, so the dispatcher can reach the people already on site. There is nothing for patients or visitors to install, no registration and no login, and the 911 call itself still goes to the 911 center as it always would. Pinpoint runs independently of your phone system and needs no new hardware.
See how Pinpoint works →9Line Dispatch: every call from your phone system, compliant
Dispatch brings Cisco Unified CM, Cisco Emergency Responder, Cisco BroadWorks and Microsoft Teams into Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act compliance. It maps each phone and softphone to a building, floor and room or zone, picks up remote users’ locations through Teams’ Location Information Service or Webex HELD, and assigns callback numbers at call time, so you do not need a DID for every device. The moment 911 is dialed, it alerts your security desk or operator by SMS, email, webhook or desktop notification, with the caller’s location. Because it supports Cisco and Teams together, 911 keeps working through a migration. More than 10,000 organizations rely on 9Line Dispatch today.
Explore 9Line Dispatch →Echo: know what your team is walking into
Echo records every 911 call that runs through 9Line and, while the call is still live, uses keyword matching and AI analysis together to understand what the caller is describing. Your team learns whether it is a medical emergency, a fire or an active threat before they arrive. Each alert carries the call transcript and a link to the recording, so the AI flags the call and your people decide what to do.
Learn about Echo →The 911 call still goes to the 911 center, and dispatch still sends help. 9Line makes sure your own people know too, and know where to go.
Where It Applies
Built for every kind of care setting.
Hospitals and medical centers
Room-level location for every phone across towers and wings, alerts to a security desk staffed around the clock, and visibility into 911 calls from patients’ and visitors’ cell phones in lobbies, garages and on the grounds.
Multi-site health systems
One approach across a flagship campus and dozens of outpatient sites, with the right local contacts notified for each location and 911 that keeps working on both Cisco and Teams during a migration.
Clinics and outpatient centers
Smaller sites with lean front-desk staffing still need direct dialing, an accurate address and a notification that reaches someone on duty.
Remote and telehealth staff
Coders, administrators and telehealth providers working from home on Teams or Webex carry their current location with every 911 call.
Senior living and long-term care
Residents in distress often cannot say where they are, so the location has to come from the system, and alerts have to reach the caregiver on the floor. Read more →
FAQ
Frequently asked questions.
Does hospital security find out when a visitor calls 911 from a cell phone?
Not by default. The wireless carrier sends the caller’s location to the 911 center only, and Kari’s Law notifications cover calls from your phone system, not personal phones. 9Line Pinpoint closes that gap by alerting your security team when anyone dials 911 from a cell phone inside geofences you draw around your property.
Do patients or visitors need to install an app for Pinpoint to work?
No. Pinpoint works with the phone’s native 911 dialing on Apple and Android. There is no app, registration or login, so it covers patients, visitors and contractors as well as staff.
Does 9Line change how the 911 call is handled?
No. The call still goes to the 911 center, which still dispatches help. 9Line alerts your own team and delivers the location with calls from your phone system, so the people already on site can respond too.
Do Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act apply to hospitals?
Yes. Both apply to any multi-line telephone system, including the Cisco Unified CM, Webex Calling, Microsoft Teams Phone and BroadWorks systems hospitals and clinics use. Systems installed after February 16, 2020 must allow direct 911 dialing, notify a central location such as a security desk, and send a dispatchable location with every call.
What counts as a dispatchable location in a hospital?
The street address plus the details responders need to find the caller, such as building, floor, wing and room or zone. A 911 call from the third-floor ICU should not reach the 911 center with only the main campus address.
Who should receive 911 notifications in a hospital?
A desk that is staffed around the clock, such as security or the operator, with the caller’s location included, so your own team can meet responders and get them to the right place.
Can 9Line support Cisco and Microsoft Teams at the same time?
Yes. 9Line Dispatch supports Cisco Unified CM, Cisco Emergency Responder, Cisco BroadWorks and Microsoft Teams, so 911 stays compliant on both platforms during a migration.
How should a hospital test its 911 setup?
Use your provider’s 933 test service, where offered, to check the address and callback number on file, and schedule live test calls with your local 911 center to confirm calls reach the right center with the right location.
Further reading
More on 911 in healthcare.
Get Started
See your campus the way a responder does.
Talk with our team about your phone systems, your buildings and grounds, and who should know the moment someone dials 911.