EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION
Five Details That Make a Significant Difference

There is no doubt that recent campus violence and natural disasters have impacted the way schools and hospitals think about security. Safety directors across the nation have been forced to deal with the possibility that a similar incident could happen on their campus. However, they are not standing idly by. The heightened awareness around potential emergencies is leading most universities and hospitals to take a look at additional safety and security measures.

Many institutions develop their emergency response plans to reflect the four stages
of emergency management—mitigation, preparation, response and recovery.

Many institutions develop their emergency response plans to reflect the four stages of emergency management—mitigation, preparation, response and recovery. Mitigation refers to efforts taken to reduce the risk of an emergency. Preparation involves careful planning to ensure procedures and systems are in place to minimize emergencies. Response includes the actions taken during an emergency. And recovery is the re- establishment of the facility and community.

Often, organizations mistakenly categorize emergency notification under the response stage. However, an effective response plan includes emergency notification in all four stages of the emergency management process.

Mitigation: Reduce the Risk
Minimizing the impact of a disaster is the foundation for an effective emergency response plan. Establishing a dependable procedure for communicating direction and detail to all contacts will reduce the risk of an emergency escalating beyond the initial situation.

When people are sent guidance and details during an emergency, they are more likely to stay out of harms way and seek safety. The challenge is ensuring that the greatest number of contacts receive accurate information quickly. Emergency notification systems can help simplify this effort through advanced database management.

Database Management
Many emergency notification systems are opt-in systems, meaning students, faculty and staff need to log on to a  website and enter their contact information. Additionally, some systems are double opt-in systems. This means after someone adds their information to the website, they must confirm the information again before being added to the contact list.

Opt-in functionality creates the perfect storm for an emergency notification system to yield disappointing results. To be successful, organizations must ensure all contacts are entered into the system from the initial installment. Doing so guarantees that organizations will reach as close to 100 percent of their contacts as possible.

Using a system that allows an organization to integrate current contact databases with the emergency notification contact list expedites and simplifies the initial installment process while bypassing the action needed from contacts to sign up online. By integrating the emergency notification system with the human resources or student database, organizations simply update the original database and the information is automatically updated in the emergency notification system, increasing efficiency for administrative staff and ensuring all contacts in the database receive the message.

It is important to remember that mitigation is only one part of the emergency management plan. Even if an organization has gone to great lengths to avoid an emergency from happening on campus, they are never completely void of all risk.

Preparation: A Dose of Reality
From school violence to severe weather and flu outbreaks, organizations need to be prepared to react and communicate in any situation. Simply having an emergency response system on site is not an effective preparation strategy.

Preparation includes planning, training and testing. An emergency notification system can help in several ways. Most importantly, frequent testing allows administrators to become familiar with the system so they know how it will work in the event of an emergency.

Testing
Testing the system allows the skills and processes learned in training to be used on an ongoing basis. It is imperative that organizations and end-users become familiar with the system and practice using it. This can be done through regular testing on a monthly or quarterly basis. In addition to helping familiarize users with the system, regular testing also allows organizations to update contact information and ensure alerts are properly set up.

Some emergency notification vendors charge by message, which seems like a good option, but could hamper an organization’s desire and ability to test the system. Additionally, important messages may not be sent for fear of going over budget. A fixed-price system that provides the user with flexibility and customization is often the best long-term choice.

Technology and preparedness are two factors that determine how effectively schools, hospitals and other groups communicate during a crisis. Planning ahead and conducting system testing is the most effective solution.

Response: The Plan in Action
Despite efforts to mitigate and prepare for an emergency, situations inevitably occur. In addition to responding directly to the incident, communication is also a top priority in emergency response.

Time is a significant factor in emergency notification. A mass notification solution can help reach thousands of people in minutes—a fraction of the time it takes to disseminate information via traditional communication methods such as auto-dialer systems or nurse call trees. That extra time could be the difference between a best- and worst-case outcome.

Multi-Modal Delivery
Text message-only emergency notification systems are a popular choice for many institutions due to the price and simplicity of the system. While text message systems that include short message peer-to-peer protocol (SMPP) capabilities are reliable forms of delivering emergency notification, an organization must also consider how the target audience prefers to receive information. While a majority of people have cell phones and the ability to receive text messages, there are a percentage of those who do not.

Delivering the right information to the right people at the right time is crucial. It sounds simple, but it is an increasingly difficult task given today’s on-the-go lifestyles and the variety of technology people use to keep in touch. Having a mass notification service that uses multiple channels—e-mail, phone, cell phone, pager, PDA, etc.—to deliver a single, consistent message is critical.

Teleconference Bridging
The ability to craft a consistent message and make decisions quickly is a challenge many organizations face in the response stage of emergency management. A common misperception is that an emergency notification system can not help with this process. However, systems that provide teleconference bridging do have the capacity to bring key decision makers and administrators together quickly to discuss the situation and develop a response plan.

An organization that uses a teleconference bridging feature is able to send a message to all key decision- makers, no matter where they are, and gather together with the press of a button. This feature is also helpful in the recovery stage of emergency management.

Recovery: Rebuilding the Community
Emergency situations are often extremely fluid—so organizations should communicate constantly and consistently during the response stage. Immediately following the response stage is the period of time known as recovery. In this stage, an organization evaluates the situation and rebuilds the community.

Real-Time Reports
While the real-time reports some emergency notification services provide are crucial in the response stage to see who has received the message, they are just as important in the recovery stage. The types of reports include lists of people who have received an alert, those who have not, and other charts and lists appropriate to the situation.

Reports generated from an emergency notification system provide a digital paper trail, as well as a detailed look into why someone may have not received an alert. This gives administrators the information to pinpoint the cause of any failures and determine what action needs to be taken to ensure more contacts receive messages going forward.

Tying it All Together
An organization may have the most detailed preparedness plan in place; however, if they have no way to contact and connect the emergency response team in a crisis, or provide students and staff with details and direction, the plan is irrelevant.

It is vital that organizations research the emergency notification options available and evaluate features against their emergency action plans. A cookie-cutter solution is often not the best fit. Safety officials know what is best for their facilities and occupants, and often find success with tailored solutions.

Regardless of the vendor providing the service, a communications plan that includes quick notification to all contacts is the groundwork for successful emergency response. The details are what differentiate the actions taken by the organization and impact success.

Karla Lemmon is the program leader for Honeywell Instant Alert Plus and Instant Alert for Schools. She has worked with both mass notification offerings since their inception. Lemmon holds an engineering degree from Valparaiso University and an MBA from the University of St. Thomas.