Bewster Ambulance took its first 911 call in the center on Friday.

WEYMOUTH – Chelsey Ferstler is on the front lines of a 911 call. As an emergency medical dispatcher, she is the one who zeros down on the location of an emergency, the nature of the problem and, if necessary, advises callers with what can be life-saving medical advice.

From there, sometimes in as little as seven seconds, Cheryl Agnew dispatches paramedics or EMTs to the scene and keeps track of every ambulance on a real-time map. For the first time on Friday, the two women got to do their jobs with the help of a new state-of-the-art software called the Next Generation 911 Emergency Call System.

“The NextGen is amazing because as soon as the 911 phone rings, where the emergency is pops up on the screen,” Agnew said.

Brewster Ambulance moved its call center from Boston to Weymouth on Friday, making the Main Street building the largest ambulance call center in the state. Now, dispatchers are in the same building with paramedics and use NextGen 911 to better serve callers.

The Brewster Ambulance center in Weymouth serves the towns of Quincy, Braintree, Plymouth, Middleboro and Taunton. During peak hours, between 2 and 6 p.m. on weekdays, all 21 stations in the new call center are staffed and operational. Each station has two to three computer monitors, two phones and a direct line to each town’s fire and police departments.

“We’re so excited to be in Weymouth because it’s in the center of our coverage area,” said Johnathon Bottit-Miller, a paramedic shift commander with Brewster. “This is the heartbeat of our agency.”

Before the installation of the NextGen software, call centers used an E-911 system, which was established when most emergency calls were made from landlines. That system used a number to look up a corresponding physical address, but the new system provides the approximate location of the caller based on which cell towers receive the call signal.

“It used to be that if someone called 911 from a cell phone, it would go to state police, then the local police department, and then to us,” Bottit-Miller said. “Now, it goes straight to us from state police which saves an average of two or three minutes per call - minutes that can be the difference between life and death.”

The system allows for more efficient communication not only between a caller and dispatcher, but also between the dispatcher and on-scene responders.

Just three days into using the new software, Brewster was called to a fatal car crash in Braintree on Sunday morning. Bottit-Miller said the real-time mapping of ambulances and constantly-updating notes between operators are what allowed such immediate response by three different ambulances.

“Unfortunately one person didn’t make it, and then the two other people were transported to different hospitals, so there were a lot of moving parts,” he said. “This allows us to move those parts faster.”

Once it is approved by the state, NextGen will also allow emergency situations to come in via text.

“There are so many more sources available now and it allows us to help more quickly and more efficiently,” Ferstler said.

Mary Whitfill may be reached at mwhitfill@ledger.com.