Remote Inspections Program

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2020

The Department of Public Health, Division of Environmental Health Services (EHS) provides services dedicated to improving the quality of life, reducing and preventing potential public health risks, and ensuring public health and safety for all residents and visitors of San Bernardino County. As the agency designated by the State and County to enforce laws and regulations, EHS aims to provide the best customer service possible by finding new technologies to improve efficiency in operations. Upon reviewing inspection data, EHS found that many of the refuse vehicles and liquid waste haulers operating in remote areas were unable to complete their inspection in a timely fashion due to time commitments involved with traveling to the inspection site. This caused inspections to be completed later than required. To continue providing the best customer service and improve operations, EHS implemented remote inspections by way of free commonly used mobile video chat applications. With the use of existing staff and technology, EHS has been able to successfully conduct timely quality vehicle inspections for its operators located in remote areas while also reducing the amount of drive time needed to get to an inspection site.