The Florida Department of Children and Families Wednesday showed reporters through its redesigned abuse hotline. The revamped system quickly researches a family's history and sends crucial data to child protective investigators.
The changes were inspired by the gruesome 2011 murder of ten-year-old Nubia Barahona by her adoptive parents.
Shortly before her death, a hotline caller said the girl and her twin were tied up in a bathtub.
DCF Secretary David Wilkins says the agency didn’t quickly follow-up as it should have.
"Because we didn't have that history, the call was not coded as what we call an immediate call, which was, 'Get out there right now.' And so the worker did not get out there until a couple of days later", said Wilkins.
By then it was too late. Wilkins says the new reporting system will connect the dots, get investigators into the field faster, and take reports online. Last year the hotline took 430,000 calls.