The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill has shaved 10 minutes off its emergency response time thanks to a simpler, single-button approach.
The university previously used a 12-step process. It would take approximately 15 minutes for authorities to arrive at a scene, but now that response time is down to five minutes thanks to a button at the campus safety department’s dispatch center that sounds a siren with verbal information on the situation as well as about 65,000 emails and 60,000 text messages, per a WNCN. com report.
The emergency information is also sent out to its website and social media platforms.
“The wording was already predetermined. What we did was automate all of those various steps,” says Matthew Mauzy, UNC’s IT manager.
“So, in the past, it took the admin logging into each individual tool, launching a message and then moving on to the next tool. Now, all of those steps are performed simultaneously and parallel without requiring individual logins to individual tools. It’s all automated.”
“We feel in particular in scenarios like this, minutes and seconds count,” says Randy Young, media relations manager for the department of public safety.
According to the university, under Alert Carolina System Protocols adopted in August 2011 and revised in Fall 2013, UNC informs the campus community using four types of notifications — Emergency Warning, Timely Warning and Informational and Adverse Weather (see graphics above for examples).
This article was originally posted on Commercial Integrator sister site CampusSafetyMagazine.com.
