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Seattle Children’s Hospital bridges its communication gap

Panic alarms have a clear function, to deliver emergency alerts quickly and clearly to personnel, so that they are able to react and respond in the shortest time possible. Seattle Children’s Hospital realized that their alerts were taking as long as 3 minutes to reach officers. Incident response times also suffered.

Seattle Childrens Hospital

Putting patients and families first

“Patients and families come first”, said Dylan Hayes, Physical Security Program Manager. “Care depends on a safe environment. When someone is in a critical situation, whether that is a patient, visitor, or care giver, seconds matter.”

Such performance, coupled with the lack of redundancy in place, was clearly not acceptable, Aronson Security Group (AGS), a premier provider of Security Risk Management Services (SRMS), was tasked with finding a new solution.

Zenitel provides high definition quality audio communication

The hospital had already installed Vingtor-Stentofon IP-based Turbine intercom stations in their parking areas, which enabled communication with high definition quality audio. It was clear that the critical communication solutions already in place had the capabilities to bridge the gap in communications and provide the required performance.

“We worked with ASG in the past to evaluate communication technology”, said Dylan Hayes. “We realized that it was important to deploy a system, a foundation, that added value to the entire security system and organization’s operations. Crystal clear audio, reliability, availability, and scalability were key to protecting our investment into the future. This design component was especially important to us.”

Alert notification times reduced from up to 3 minutes down to seconds

ASG, was able to use the technology and systems already in place to make the necessary upgrades, delivering increased functionality and communication redundancy. This was only possible thanks to the close cooperation and input provided by Zenitel and their dedicated support center in Kansas City.

The result was that existing investments were protected, alert notification times were reduced from up to 3 minutes down to seconds and they were able to bridge the gap between time-sensitive communications and staff response.

Read the full article here http://www.campussafetymagazine.com/article/seattle_childrens_hospital_bridges_its_communication_gap