For many public facilities, access to critical incident mapping can be a key differentiator in the outcome of an emergency. Emergency preparedness is crucial for facility managers to keep staff, visitors, and everyone on campus safe by rapidly locating and responding to emergencies.
Digital mapping technology can help provide real-time awareness for first responders, administrators, and their staff to visually pinpoint incident locations, affected personnel, and safety assets like fire extinguishers, first-aid kits, and AEDs.
With the proper planning, training, and digital mapping technology implemented, you can drastically reduce emergency response time. CENTEGIX Safety Platform™ can help.
Here’s what you need to know.
Understanding Emergency Preparedness
Emergency preparedness is a cornerstone of successful facilities management to keep employees and others within your facilities safe. Facility managers must assess potential risks and vulnerabilities, such as fire hazards and low-security access points, to better train and prepare responders and staff to manage situations effectively.
Facilities managers must fulfill several crucial roles during an emergency. For instance, they must understand and maintain emergency assets and facility systems like electricity, water, and lighting and collaborate with other departments so that department personnel can guide people to a secure area and enact their safety plan.
Some potential emergencies you may face include:
- Fire outbreaks within your campus
- Exposure to chemical hazards or toxic spills
- Incidents of accidental poisoning or allergic reactions to substances
- Unauthorized elopement or wandering of high-risk individuals, such as students with special needs or hospital patients with dementia
- Electrical failures or electrical fire risks within the building
- Water leaks or flooding due to plumbing failures
To respond effectively in an emergency, facilities managers must collaborate with other departments and key personnel involved in safety planning. Even before emergencies arise, facilities managers proactively work with staff to improve training and routinely update and maintain safety assets within the building to ensure they are up-to-date and functional.
They must also work with crucial personnel to perform a post-crisis assessment of the facilities and emergency response effectiveness to identify successes and failures. This joint effort includes updating the safety plan and follow-up training to shore up any weak points or inefficiencies, such as communication breakdowns, access control issues, and post-emergency recovery.
Perspective of Law Enforcement on Emergency Preparedness
Law enforcement officers understand that emergency preparedness makes all the difference in a crisis. They face these crises regularly and can attest to how proactive planning can mitigate harm.
Former Phoenix Chief of Police Jeri Williams is among those in law enforcement who have seen the impact of good emergency preparedness.
Chief Williams speaks to her experience as a professional law enforcement officer with 33 years of experience.
“The irony of being prepared is, in our minds, we think we know what we’re going to do and how we’re going to react,” Chief Williams says. “It’s not until the moment happens that you really get to test either your reps—meaning the number of times you’ve been through practice—or you find the gaps.”
Williams stresses continued training and updating of your emergency plan by coordinating with fire and law enforcement to confirm procedures and systems are all up to date. She suggested that CENTEGIX’s critical incident mapping solution can help facilities ensure all emergency maps are up to date, all safety equipment is updated and maintained, and first responders always have access to the most up-to-date information.
Chief Williams believes that effectiveness in an emergency comes from having the knowledge and relationships to target critical responders, having regular exercises with staff to respond to different scenarios, and being the voice of reason when leading safety procedures such as building evacuations.
Communication Strategies
Clear, concise communication is vital to emergency responsiveness. A good communication plan should avoid using complex codes or unclear language. Williams explains that while police and fire departments use complex codes, they are also trained to communicate plainly and directly with those facing a crisis.
The best communication strategy prioritizes giving simple next steps and ensuring one primary source of information to cross-communicate with responders and staff to avoid conflicting information, such as a single, dynamic campus map with relevant assets that all stakeholders can access.
Williams stresses that it’s important to communicate only what you know and not what you may perceive.
Training and Drills
Planning and executing regular training and drills for emergencies means better preparing staff to respond effectively.
Williams suggests regular brief but thorough training and including local emergency personnel in developing that training program. Emergency training materials can include detailed instructions for various types of emergencies, campus maps with evacuation routes and safety assets, supplemental resources and fact sheets, and exercises for multiple scenarios, and should be updated regularly. Leaders should gather feedback to assess training, make necessary changes or improvements, and develop after-action reports.
Effective training and drills empower staff and foster a culture of prevention and safety.
Developing an Effective Emergency Plan
An effective emergency plan relies on several vital components to maximize effectiveness and mitigate a crisis. These include:
- Communication strategies—Who are the key responders for each type of emergency? Who will be your primary communicator for staff, responders, victims, and the general public? How do you communicate in a clear, concise way to rapidly mobilize?
- Evacuation plans—Where are the evacuation routes and meetup points in and around your facilities, and how do you get people to safety effectively?
- Emergency supplies—Where are critical safety assets around your facility, such as fire extinguishers, fire alarms, defibrillators, first aid kits, etc.?
- Tailoring your emergency plan to address specific hazards—Your plan should include steps to protect people, deploy assets, restore systems for many emergencies, and post-crisis recovery.
Technology plays a critical role in your emergency digital mapping and response plan. CENTEGIX offers technology solutions to help you maximize safety in your facility and effectively plan for and respond to emergencies.
CENTEGIX: Emergency Preparedness Through Digital Mapping
CENTEGIX offers digital technology solutions to improve safety in public and private facilities, including:
Dynamic Digital Mapping
CENTEGIX Safety Blueprint is a dynamic, real-time intelligent mapping solution that gives responders instant access to the precise location of an emergency and nearby safety assets for the most effective and coordinated response possible. It also empowers staff and administrators to customize safety plans and disseminate campus information efficiently. Safety Blueprint is a single source of critical digital mapping information about your facility’s buildings and assets for all responders, administrators, and staff.
Safety Blueprint offers advantages such as:
- Visualizing where safety equipment and assets are throughout your entire campus
- Monitoring critical information of assets regarding maintenance, inspections, serial numbers, requisition reports, and more
- Adding various map layers and assets according to facilities’ needs
- Changing and updating floor plans as your campus evolves
- Collaborating between different departments and responders
- Eliminating disparate version control
CrisisAlert Wearable Panic Buttons
The CrisisAlert wearable badge allows you to get help to the correct location fast. With CrisisAlert, staff can discreetly request help, alerting administrators and other responders with their exact location.
With CrisisAlert, you can send two different types of alerts.
- A Staff Alert sends a discreet alert to local responders with the precise location of an incident.
- A Campus-wide Alert instantly notifies 911 dispatch, activates full audio and visual notifications campus-wide, and provides first responders with precise location details through Safety Blueprint, displaying who needs help and where they’re located.
As the industry leader in wearable safety technology, CENTEGIX solutions allow you to enhance facility emergency management by leveraging dynamic digital mapping.
