Page 56 - Security Today, March 2020

“The more ways you can reach peo- ple, the less likely it is that they miss a message, and the easier you make it to trigger a message, the more quickly people can begin responding.”
alerts that will only reach security personnel or specific members of their staff.
The Mobile Element
Mobile devices can be particularly useful in healthcare environ- ments when combined with mass notification. Beyond delivering mass SMS text messages, users with the right permissions can also trigger notifications right from their phones through an app. This means they don’t need to get to a desktop computer to acti- vate an alert, speeding up the notification process.
Mobile notifications can also ask recipients for a response. In healthcare environments, this can help to understand who is safe and who needs assistance, as well as assist with providing quick staffing information.
Because mass notification systems often allow administrators to develop groups to receive certain notifications, if a hospital experiences an influx of patients or severe weather causes staffing issues, mass notifications can help recruit available staff quickly to let them know they are needed.
Thanks to this communications system, staff members will not need to wait for direction from a superior but receive the same message at the same time and move forward with the neces- sary actions. Once healthcare professionals are accustomed to the system, they will also realize its utility in making their jobs easier and simplifying their responses to not only emergency events but other situations as well.
Designating Zones for Events
Not every event warrants alerting an entire organization. In some instances, you may only need to reach your security team, or you may want to avoid sending critical code blue pages to sensitive visitor areas. With a mass notification system, administrators can establish zones so messages only play in select areas and get in- formation to the people who are both best equipped to respond or are in most danger.
This could include sending alerts to a specific floor or wing of a hospital or only sending a message to a doctor’s lounge or security office. This can help make responses more efficient and avoid having messages cause undo anxiety by being heard by fam- ily members.
Trigger lockdowns with mass notification. Depending on the event, a lockdown may need to be initiated. This could be used keep a dangerous individual in a particular area of a facility or be used to prevent people from leaving if a baby is taken from the maternity ward.
Using electronic door locks, when a notification is triggered, it can also cause doors to lock. This can be used as an extra level of protection for people within a facility by preventing them from coming into contact with someone that might mean them harm.
IoT Integration. Similar integrations can be made with Inter-
net of Things devices to trigger alerts using email notifications and contact closures. For example, many hospitals now connect their mass notification systems to patient RFID tags. Discovering a patient has wandered away from a designated area can put the patient at risk and waste valuable resources.
When patients leave an area, the RFID system triggers an alert to the mass notification system, which can then relay a mes- sage to hospital staff, and even play a message to overhead speak- ers in the area to encourage the patient to remain where they are or return to their bed. This helps avert potential security issues before they have a chance to get out of hand.
Remote site communication. Mass notification systems can also be used to enhance communication and safety at remote sites. While smaller clinics may not have the same technology amenities as their hospital counterparts, they can still be con- nected to an organization’s mass notification system.
This can help keep everyone in your organization aware of security events, and allow those at remote sites to ask for ad- ditional assistance should they require it. It can also keep them updated about severe weather events that might impact their daily operations through automatic alerts triggered through monitored CAP feeds.
Managing a response. It is not just about getting the word out though. Healthcare organizations also need to provide assistance and assess situations as they unfold, updating their response to meet the moment. In addition to sending alerts, mass notifica- tions can launch conference calls and collaboration tools with specific team members who can manage a response even if they are not physically in the same room. This can be crucial if a se- curity director is off-site or if staff need to call in details about a situation as it is happening.
By bringing the right people together as soon as a notification is launched, healthcare organizations can get insight into an on- going event and determine the best course of action to mitigate security concerns.
This can be much more effective than manually trying to gath- er people in a conference call or web-based collaboration tool, which can delay a response or cause undue technical difficulties. In addition, new staff members who are not as familiar with the emergency management process will not have to navigate new technology if communication is conducted entirely through the mass notification system.
More than Just Security
Of course, a mass notification system can be used for more than just security events. With the ability to schedule messages, health- care facilities can also use it for a wide range of tasks. For exam- ple, you can schedule messages that are broadcast throughout a hospital to signal that visiting hours are over. This helps improve the ROI on the system and helps to ensure it is working properly.
These every day uses can also serve as discrete tests to en- sure messages are reaching the right devices
making it more likely the system will work as
intended when it is deployed during an emer-
gency situation.
Pat Scheckel is vice president of product man- agement at Singlewire Software.
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