Hospitals and other medical institutions face many potential emergency scenarios that they must stay prepared for. One of those emergencies is a bomb threat or a suspicious package, often called a “code black.” Code black emergencies can be complex to manage quickly, calmly, and efficiently due to the many moving parts of a total evacuation. As you can imagine, in a hospital with many patients that have varying needs and abilities, this can be a very difficult task—especially for hospitals with intensive care patients.
SimplyCast makes things easy with the Code Black use case: a complete solution for managing bomb threat emergencies that enforces evacuation protocols and emergency management procedures while keeping hospital stakeholders in the loop, all via our convenient central dashboard. This digital mass notification solution makes use of powerful alerts, advanced response-based tracking, responsive surveys, giving you the tools you need to streamline your code black response process and ensure the safety of your patients and staff.
Steps to Improve the Code Black Response
Step 1: Create a Hospital Staff Database
With a digital code black emergency response solution, you are able to store all the information for staff members (such as their names, their contact information, their role at the hospital, and any other piece of information you need) in a central contact database that can easily be accessed in the event a code black is declared.
Building a staff database ahead of time is paramount to the success of any emergency alert system, and keeping this up-to-date and connected to your emergency tools is the first key to a successful emergency response.
Step 2: Prepare Alert Message Templates
The next step of digitizing the response to a code black for hospitals is creating a set of alert message templates that can be deployed at a moment’s notice. Templating messages ahead of time allows the code black response process to be triggered with a single click, and ensures that messaging is steady, consistent, and reliable during a very chaotic time.
Try creating a few different alert message templates to account for any variances that may occur during a code black, as well as a final “all clear” notification that can be sent once the situation has been resolved. Each alert message should contain all the important information necessary for responding to the emergency, such as the urgency of the evacuation, gathering locations for staff and patients, and any precautionary measures that should be taken.
Step 3: Mobilize Staff
Your hospital is now prepared to react immediately in the event of a code black. If a suspicious package is discovered or a credible threat is made, you can instantly notify staff and stakeholders over multiple communication channels (such as email, SMS, and by phone), allowing your staff to get your patients and themselves to safety that much faster.
During this phase, you might also trigger live surveys: a real-time data-gathering feature that will allow you to secure locations for patients who require ongoing care while you resolve the situation.
Step 4: Review Responsiveness Report
After a code black is resolved, the digital emergency response solution will generate a report which will provide you with important details and information regarding the alerts that were sent, such as the open rate, click-through rate, and who acknowledged the alerts and when.
These reports will help you measure the effectiveness of your code black emergency response and will provide you with helpful insights into where you can improve your alert messaging, ensuring your hospital staff can be ready no matter what.
Why SimplyCast?
The SimplyCast platform is a no-code platform that is fully customizable and can be tweaked or altered to meet the exact needs of every medical facility.
SimplyCast is an ISO 27001:2013-certified company with data centers in the USA and Canada. This means we can assure you that your confidential data is safe on our secure server and that the messages you transmit are completely encrypted. Our platform has the capacity to send more than 100,000 messages every hour and allows for more than 10,000 concurrent sessions. We can also acquire additional gateways and servers if you need them.
Most importantly, we have a 99.5 percent minimum uptime. With our solution, you can have peace of mind.
Interested in Improving Your Code Black Response?
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Simply request a demo by clicking the button below and let us show you how our solution can help you manage your code black response more efficiently.
