Long shot - emergency response teams

[firedancer49]

This may be a long shot, but does anyone have experience with emergency response teams or first responder programs within their company?  I'm currently in the process of putting an entire program together and I am stuck on one part, and all of my outside agencies and fire departments that I am working with have different options.  I'm meeting with another large company in the area today to see how they do this, but I wanted input here if anyone has it. 

I'm stuck on the communication aspect, where if there was an emergency (let it be first aid, active shooter, shelter/harbor in place, evacuations etc) how to the emergency responders within the company be notified and communicate with one another.  We have some two way radio's, but I do not want to give one to every single volunteer (120 ppl).  One of the agencies wants something announced over the pa system, but I see that causing my issues with nosey people.

Like I said, this may be a long shot, but I'm crossing my fingers that someone may have some experience.

[saucyc]

we have a number to dial that connects to all of the responders pagers or desk phones within the company at once

eta: I think our IT department also set up the ER's cell phones to ring if that number is dialed as well, they connected their desk phones to their cell phones. I have no idea how.

[firedancer49]

That's a smart idea to page someone who doesn't work here. It's a big company, so we'd need some obscure name.

Right now in the one of the buildings, we have 17 corporate buildings in this state, we use a call system where they press a button and all of the phones for the ERT ring, but we can't use that in a majority of the buildings.

We also have a new system that we can go to a website, or call a company, and provide a message that will ring, email and text to all emails and phone information provided, but in the event of a medical emergency that program is harder to use because we need something quicker.

[Chelle]

We have a phone fan out list. I don't know the specifics of how it works, but I know it's in place.

However, I work in long term care, so our "emergencies" would have more to do with having a flood or fire and needing help evacuating or relocating all of our residents. You may need a faster response time than that. In hospitals we have codes, could you call a code over the PA?

[game blouses]

Our school had an announcement about the staff meeting at 5 o'clock. It was easy to remember because no teacher would go to a meeting at 5.

[firedancer49]

Oct 30, 2013 10:53:26 GMT -5 Chelle said:

We have a phone fan out list. I don't know the specifics of how it works, but I know it's in place.

However, I work in long term care, so our "emergencies" would have more to do with having a flood or fire and needing help evacuating or relocating all of our residents. You may need a faster response time than that. In hospitals we have codes, could you call a code over the PA?

We talked about making codes, but then one of the agencies said it would confuse people too much, so that idea was nixed.  The last thing that we all came to some sort of agreement was that if there was a medical emergency security would come over the PA and ask a ERT member to go on the walkie talkie and page them.  Then security would give out specifics of the incident.  BUT... we are not giving everyone a walkie.  We will only give them to zone coordinators or incident commanders.  How do they then get the info out to all other ERT members?  I'm so stuck and just trying to talk it out.

[Deleted]

In the hospital I worked at we had

Mr. Silver- active shooter, person with gun
Mr. Black- aggressive person, personal threat
Mr. Red- fire
Mr. Yellow- lost person (not child)
Mr. Green- external disturbance such as in the parking lot 

We would page them to the location of the threat. If there was a prison with a gun by the ER, we would page Mr. Silver to the ER please 3x. We would have 2-way radios in each department, at the volunteer desks, in the ambulance garage to keep communication up throughout the facility. One person was in charge at each radio of keeping the staff/volunteers informed of the situation. We also had panic buttons paging police, security and maintenance. 

We also have a phone tree in each department so each department calls their members to inform them of the situation. Ex: In a code black whomever got the notification first calls a specific person, who calls the next, etc. 

[harmony11]

We have a call tree/list that has current contact information for every person on the emergency response team. Everyone knows who they are supposed to call once the ball is rolling. We then assemble in a designated crisis response room.

As for getting the info out. Once we have assembled, one of my roles is to communicate what is going on within the necessary groups or agencies and they, in turn, notify their departments as needed. I usually draft an email alert that is sent to all employees advising them of the information we know/can share.

I know I don't post much and you don't know me from a stranger on the street, but if you want to send me a PM, we can talk further.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Our paging at the hospital I used to work with was "paging Dr. Dang".

ETA: The number they said for Dr. Dang to call was the code for the type of emergency.  So, for example, they'd say "Paging Dr. Dang, 498, Dr. Dang, please call 498."  (I made up that number, but each station in the hospital had a list of "Dr. Dang Codes")

The idea was not to scare the visitors/patients, but let the staff know what was going on.

[Deleted]

We have a panic button in the reception area. When pressed, it locks all the doors to prevent the person from getting any further into the building, but people can still get out. The receptionist has 15 seconds from pushing the button to get behind another door. It then alerts the local police and sends out an email to everyone in the building. The police have a special all-access badge so they can still get in the building.

Rather than an email, we talked about changing it to a certain chime for those that may not be near their laptops/phones.

[BAMFMrsB]

Oct 30, 2013 11:42:15 GMT -5 trixieflips said:

In the hospital I worked at we had

Mr. Silver- active shooter, person with gun
Mr. Black- aggressive person, personal threat
Mr. Red- fire
Mr. Yellow- lost person (not child)
Mr. Green- external disturbance such as in the parking lot 

Ours is similar to this.

"Code Black" is a shooter/domestic dispute = get inside a locked room.

We also have panic buttons in some areas.

[Chelle]

Oct 30, 2013 11:16:50 GMT -5 firedancer49 said:

Oct 30, 2013 10:53:26 GMT -5 Chelle said:

We have a phone fan out list. I don't know the specifics of how it works, but I know it's in place.

However, I work in long term care, so our "emergencies" would have more to do with having a flood or fire and needing help evacuating or relocating all of our residents. You may need a faster response time than that. In hospitals we have codes, could you call a code over the PA?

We talked about making codes, but then one of the agencies said it would confuse people too much, so that idea was nixed.  The last thing that we all came to some sort of agreement was that if there was a medical emergency security would come over the PA and ask a ERT member to go on the walkie talkie and page them.  Then security would give out specifics of the incident.  BUT... we are not giving everyone a walkie.  We will only give them to zone coordinators or incident commanders.  How do they then get the info out to all other ERT members?  I'm so stuck and just trying to talk it out.

Do you guys have ID or door entry cards? We just have the codes printed on the back of our ID cards.

[fiddles]

We have floor captains that have a 2way radio. They then notify the rest of the ert members in the floor

from my phone yo!