Even if rain isn’t in the forecast, most of us still store an umbrella somewhere. We all have a spare tire even though we don’t expect to get a flat. We still feed the meter for an hour and fifteen when we know we’ll only be gone for an hour.

Why is it any different with an office emergency? It is rare to wake up expecting a fire, flood, or civil disturbance at the office, but planning for these events are crucial for us and our employees. Not sure how to begin? Use the following steps as a guide.

Do an emergency assessment and determine what types of potential emergencies are a risk for your office.

Your emergency plan should be all inclusive and tailored to your organization. Do an assessment of any physical, environmental, or chemical hazards that might make your building vulnerable to an emergency. If you have multiple sites, each one should have its own emergency plan. For more information on types of emergencies in the workplace, take a deeper look with OSHA’s “How to Plan for Workplace Emergencies and Evacuations” guide.

Develop a method for reporting emergencies and alerting your employees.

A well developed plan should have an efficient system for reporting an emergency that also includes a standard way of alerting employees. An alarm system is an obvious component, but it doesn’t give employees much information other than to leave the building. A portable radio unit or a mobile crisis management network, like Punch Alert, are reliable options. Confusion is the last thing you want in a crisis, so make sure to train your employees on your desired method. If you’d like a little more guidance on crisis communication visit ready.gov or cdc.gov for more insight and sample plans.

Assign roles and duties for employees.

Set up internal teams within the office, such as an evacuation team or shelter team. Within each team designate a leader who has the authority to make decisions and supervises the process. Also assign medical duties for employees qualified to perform them and instructions for those who may stay behind to shut down any operations, or use fire extinguishers. It’s crucial for employees to know their role for a smooth evacuation that minimizes damages, so make sure the teams and roles are clearly written out. For an example of a comprehensible plan, view ready.gov’s sample template.

Develop an evacuation policy and procedure.

Based on the floor plan of your office, come up with primary and secondary escape routes. Make sure your chosen exits are well lit, wide enough to fit several employees, and unlikely to put those evacuating at any further risk. Also determine refuge areas designated for when evacuation is no longer an option. Post these procedures where they are easily accessible to everyone. Consider a physical location at the office and also online or mobile – more than one place is always best.

Designate an assembly location.

An assembly location ensures you can account for all employees after evacuation and notify police, fire department, or medics if anyone is still in the building.

It is crucial for you and your employees to take the time to plan for an emergency. Although no one expects a crisis when they walk into work, it gives everyone peace of mind to know the organization is ready for it. It’s like bringing that umbrella to the picnic when there’s not a cloud in the sky – always Be Prepared!

Stronger workplace violence regulations demand a comprehensive, superior safety system.

A national research study shows that health care workers are at a higher risk of workplace violence than the average worker. It is not uncommon for health care workers to suffer injuries from aggressive, upset patients, angry family members, or other stressed employees. (For more information visit here)

California Division of Occupational Safety and Health has approved a rule that protects health care workers against violence in the workplace in California. This newly approved rule requires hospitals and other health care organizations to develop violence prevention plans that will identify violent risks, provide a process for mitigation and an effective response plan. It ensures that workplace violence is reported, investigated, and reviewed. In addition, it stipulates that the organizations effectively alert employees of the presence, location, and nature of a violent act or security threat.

Health care facilities are required to implement the use of an “alarm system or other effective means by which their employees can summon security and other aid” to manage and resolve an actual or potential workplace violence emergency. This new law has set the bar with the strongest regulations against workplace violence and will most likely become the model for other healthcare organizations nationally.

Implementing an effective, comprehensive and compliant solution can be complicated, time consuming and expensive. We, at Punch Technologies, have developed an emergency communication platform that will meet all the requirements set forth by CAL/OSHA and more.
Punch Alert is exactly the safety system health care facilities will need to meet the OSHA Compliance standards and keep their staff safe in the workplace.

Utilizing the cell phones that employees already have, Punch Alert is a comprehensive mobile safety system that healthcare workers can bring with them anywhere, anytime. If they find themselves in a potentially dangerous situation they can discretely punch a button in the app immediately alerting the right responders and notifying other employees nearby about the incident. Staff, patients and visitors can also receive warnings or announcements as mass notifications from the designated safety team on property. All organizations using Punch Alert are geofenced and iBeacons will accurately determine even specific indoor locations, so responders always have precise information about where help is needed in an active emergency situation. The staff can also access emergency plans on their phone at any time, so they are prepared and equipped for any emergency specific to their department and organization. Using Punch Alert as safety communication, the health care organization will automatically obtain an archive of incidents and communication on record to review with staff, which allows for ongoing training and involvement of employees, hence increased preparedness for emergencies.

Punch Alert doesn’t only help organizations meet OSHA Compliance Standards, the fact that all staff in the healthcare organization is connected in a portable safety community via their phones, will take away the stress and worries about how to deal with unforeseen incidents during a shift.

When Punch Alert takes care of the health care workers safety, the health care workers can take care of their patients. Within the health care organization, no one gets hurt and everyone is safe.

Sources here, here and from the California OSHA Legislation: Standards Presentation To California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board, Title 8, Chapter 4.

We’ve been collaborating recently with a friend, John Baker, Safety and Security Manager for Lancaster Lebanon IU13 in Pennsylvania. John requested I draft a guest blog post last week, and it just went live here.

You can also read the post here:
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With foresight and leadership, great schools across the country are making safety a priority, and not just with words but concrete action. Here are some notable items to consider when putting your own plan into action:

• Not Just Active Shooter – Ironically, the best way to prepare for an active shooter incident is to embrace safety solutions that can be used for more common safety incidents. The high incidence of active shooter events is frightening, and many schools have changed their mindset to “when,” not “if.” That said, every school frequently faces incidents such as accidents, injuries, weather events, fights and other dangerous situations involving students, parents, or visitors. By communicating through a system like Punch Alert on a regular basis, a school is able to more finely tune its ability to handle, measure, and improve its response for when it needs it the most.

• Work Together – Safety is not just the job of our law enforcement. In the past, schools relied too much on 911 and the police or fire department to arrive on scene and direct traffic. This approach has not proven sufficient. Schools must act immediately and with confidence. Punch Alert customers form an “internal responder” team for every location that makes emergency response their greatest responsibility. Within seconds of an emergency declared, responders communicate in the mobile app and make the critical decisions whether or not to release the emergency not only to official responder groups, but staff, faculty, students, parents, or even visitors. With this inclusive approach, schools are able to build a community of safety that can work together to make a difference.

At Punch Alert, we’ve been very lucky to work with and learn from great, action-oriented schools across the country. As a parent of young children, I’m optimistic that our schools have the skills, tools, and mindset required to keep our children safe. But this will not happen on its own. We all need to get involved and help our schools move beyond the talk and take action!

Starting a company or building anything new is really tough.  Why?  Because of the herd mentality.  The other day I brought my kids to their weekly swimming lesson, but this time something was different.  For some reason, two-dozen parents were packed into the pool area, standing or sitting right next to the pool.  I asked the owner if something was wrong with the standard waiting area, and she replied, “No, it’s just that we have a new student and when her parents decided to stay, all the other parents started copying them.”  That’s what happens to us all, every day, many times a day.  There’s another known phenomenon called “anchoring” that guides our thoughts and decisions in one direction or another based on some pre-determined subconscious anchor that we think is approximately right.  Often, this anchor is completely random, and yet it still affects our thinking.  Why do we do this?  Because human beings have a really hard time thinking about anything in true isolation.  We usually adjust up or down from some other starting point.

Ok, now back to starting something new.  The goal is to create a new way of thinking and find the early adopters that can help guide the herd in a better direction.  But that’s easier said than done.  I don’t have the answer, but I believe the key is to have conviction.  If you’re trying to get someone to try a new drink, or game, or style of clothing, it may be difficult to have that conviction if society tells you that “you suck.”  However, at Punch we have a lofty goal of a much, much safer world.  This drives us with conviction through any adversity because we are working backwards from a better outcome.

So what’s our mission?  To create a much safer world where response times are so fast that most people would never even consider committing a crime.  Remember the Tom Cruise movie, “Minority Report?”  Just imagine murders or rapes being stopped before they even start.  But we don’t need to put three psychics in a pool all drugged up to predict the future with a special rolling marble.  There is a real way to do this.  In fact, I’ll state flat out that it’s going to happen.  How?

Well, let’s start with 911.  Do you really think we’ll be dialing 911 fifty years from now? Do you remember 411?  Who still uses that when you can just say “Ok Google” or “Hey Siri.”  Punch Alert is our first step towards creating a better way to communicate during an emergency.  We are empowering organizations like schools to better protect themselves, and the early adopters have come on board.

That was the start, and stay tuned for what’s next.  We’ve got something very special up our sleeves and the world might just never be the same!

In the last few weeks we have been peppered with lots of questions about our Text-to-911 map and availability checker, so I am going to address them here.

The Text-to-911 map is really a composition of several different datasets: US County map, PSAP points, the FCC “official” availability map and our own coverage map. So why the different maps? Lets break them down:

• US County Map – This is used as our map base. About 75% of the counties in the US only have one 911 call center (PSAP), so in determining coverage, the county map is a good place to start. Since every PSAP is in a county, it can serve as the base.
• PSAP Points – There are over 6500 PSAP’s and over 3100 counties in the US. In many metropolitan areas, or those of high population, there are multiple PSAP’s within the county to serve different jurisdictions. We’ll talk about jurisdictions later. We have mapped out every single primary PSAP (and most of the secondary PSAP’s) for every county and jurisdiction. Text-to-911 coverage is determined by PSAP, not county. There are quite a few counties that are reflected as partially supporting Text-to-911 in the availability checkersimply because at least one of the PSAPs in the county supports it, but not all.
• The FCC Text-to-911 Availability spreadsheet – The FCC provides a spreadsheet that is updated every 30-45 days that reflects the PSAP’s in the country that support Text-to-911. This data is wholly dependent upon the individual PSAP’s submitting a paper form to the FCC regarding coverage. This is not terribly efficient, but fortunately, we can help with that.
• Punch Technologies Availability Map – This is our availability map that plots the covered counties/PSAP’s according to the FCC, but we take it a step further. We are proactively reaching out to all of the PSAPs in the country and asking them when they believe Text-to-911 will be supported. Believe it or not, there are many PSAPs that already support Text-to-911, but in most cases they are not aware that there is a paper form that needs to be submitted to the FCC for inclusion in the “Official” spreadsheet. In some cases we have found that the submitted form is taking 6-8 weeks to be processed. That’s why we also reflect partially supported counties.

While the FCC is the system of record for the Text-to-911 supported PSAP availability list, we feel very confident that our maps are more accurate simply because of our process to proactively determine where the service is supported.

Now lets go through the continued challenges of maintaining the maps. The coverage map is very much a living document in that the PSAP’s have to continually be consulted to determine the level of coverage. Text-to-911 sounds like a simple service, but it is far from simple. I’ll save that for a later post. I think the biggest challenge is determining and maintaining the PSAP jurisdictions when there is more than one PSAP present in a county. When there is only one PSAP, the jurisdictional boundaries are obvious and straightforward; however, with multiple PSAPs available in a county, how 911 calls are routed to a particular PSAP, is a spaghetti diagram. There is not a (publicly available) defined methodology to routing 911 calls from the wireless carriers (I know, I have asked them at various levels of leadership). In some counties, the routing is determined by zip codes (really poly lines since the zip codes are nothing more than routes), in other counties it is determined by fire response zones or various zoning laws. Regardless of how it is determined, it is anything but clear.

So, how do we use the information in our apps? We only paint availability based on total PSAP support for a county. If a county has more than one PSAP and not all of them support Text-to-911, we won’t paint that county as available. Currently, this is the safest way to present dynamic coverage. Although, we have made strides in remedying the issue. We have begun to consult the local county governments where partial Text-to-911 support exists to get emergency response jurisdictional maps. We have made headway and have begun to implement jurisdictional maps in the app coverage, but we have a ways to go since there is NO standardization for county GIS at present.

Non-standardization is impossible in this day and age you say? Ha! Now that issue will really make your blood boil, but I’ll save that for later as well