The safety of staff, patients and visitors is a primary concern for a large healthcare provider in Oklahoma, given the size and nature of their facility. The hospital wants to ensure that mechanisms are in place for individuals to request assistance in dangerous and distressful situations. From public areas such as pharmacies and reception desks, to private exam rooms and offices, they need a quick, reliable and safe mechanism to alert the security command center to a problem or security threat.

DAKS SILENT ALARM SOLUTION
The hospital’s police and security team implemented DAKS Silent Alarms as the key component of their threat reporting and response solution. When an employee feels threatened, a simple press of a speed dial key on a system phone triggers an alert notification to the security office command center. No alarms sound in the immediate area that could potentially make the situation more dangerous. Command center staff see where the calls originate and take appropriate steps to assist the caller and mitigate the threat.

Simple Deployment
The hospital did not need to bust the budget, spend months deploying new technology or time educating staff on complex procedures. The solution leverages the Alert Notifications application in their DAKS communication server platform in conjunction with their existing telephone system infrastructure. Speed dial buttons are configured on a few hundred phones in patient rooms, pharmacy, exam rooms, emergency room reception, nurse stations, mental health ward and other vulnerable areas throughout the medical center. The button has no text label, just a simple green marker to identify it as the alarm key.

Simple Workflow
The DAKS Silent Alarms have been deployed for several years. Typically, three to four alerts are initiated each day. Some turn out to be accidental or false alarms, but others reporting incidents such as a suicidal or violent patient behavior and suspicious or belligerent visitor behavior. The process is:

• Employee pushes the designated speed dial button. There are no visible (no lamps remain lit) or audible (no dial tone is heard) indications of the action so as not to contribute to the situation escalating.
• DAKS initiates a recorded notification to a designated position in the security command center with an alarm ring tone — leveraging the CorNet-NQ protocol of the Unify OpenScape 4000 PBX. The phone displays the room and call back number of the incident location.
• The dispatcher makes a radio call for officers to respond to that location. From a separate position, dispatchers call back to the incident location to assess the situation. Even if the person answering the phone reports “all is well,” officers continue to respond to put eyes on the situation.
• Once an officer arrives, he/she assesses the situation, takes appropriate action and updates the security command center.

SUMMARY
In partnering with Impact Technologies, this Oklahoma hospital has leveraged the flexibility of DAKS and their existing communication infrastructure to substantially elevate the safety and security of their staff and constituency.

At Impact, we are ready to help your organization improve your business workflows with DAKS. Be ready to respond quickly and efficiently to safety and security threats while also streamlining day-to-day operations. Contact us today to talk more about your interoperability challenges for security, notification and collaboration.