Taking
STEPS - from Berkshire to Strathclyde
First
emergency services body to install the STEPS emergency
planning software from Imass and Excelerate is the South
Central Ambulance Trust (SCAS), which was formed last year
from the ambulance services of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire,
Oxfordshire and Hampshire.
James
AMOS, emergency planning officer for SCAS, said:
"It is vital for us, as an ambulance trust that
covers such a wide and diverse area, that we equip
ourselves with technology that will aid us in our
emergency management and multi-agency response
procedures. This is why we have chosen the new Imass
STEPS solution."
STEPS,
which was launched at last year's BAPCO exhibition,
enables organisations to associate pre-planned responses
with any location, building or geographical area. As
an incident develops, STEPS also allows its dynamics to be
recorded by taking screen shots at any stage or via an
audit trail module.
"One
of the real benefits of STEPS, aside from its simplicity
of use, is its flexibility", commented Jeremy
Valentine, of Imass. "We worked very closely
with South Central Ambulance and listened very carefully
to fully understand their overall business
requirements. We then committed to further develop
STEPS, ensuring the solution met their comprehensive
emergency planning and response needs."
SCAS
also uses Excelerate's Transportable Satellite Broadband
VPN (TSBV) technology along with Excelerate's integrated
wireless, VOIP and CCTV applications over its managed
satellite network, allowing real-time remote viewing of
STEPS.
Instant
updates
David
Savage, of Excelerate Technology, commented: "One of
the main attractions of the STEPS solution is its
simplicity of use and its automatic update across the
Excelerate wireless mesh solution in a multi-agency
response." Using the system, he explained,
managers could update their plans while keeping all
involved parties informed. "As soon as one plan
of action is made, the information is relayed across the
wireless mesh and updated on all of the whiteboards in the
relevant response units."
Excelerate
and Imass have also been working to implement STEPS for
Strathclyde Fire and Rescue (SFR), an existing user of
Excelerate's broadband VPN technology. STEPS will be
operational both in Strathclyde's Silver Command Room in
Johnstone and also on four forward command and support
vehicles, enabling emergency plans to be shared across
multiple fixed and mobile satellite-enabled sites in
real-time. Iain Morris, head of technical support
and logistics at Strathclyde, said: "When combined
with the Excelerate wireless mesh technology, we can be
sure that in a multi-agency response situation, police,
fire and ambulance crews can update a shared plan, safe in
the knowledge that the information will be relayed in
real-time to all relevant response units which are
STEPS-enabled."
Click
here to read more about the Imass STEPS solution
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