MIR3's inWebServices integration to provide Intelligent Notification to International SOS global network of Medical Assistance Alarm Centers
SAN DIEGO, CA --[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- September 19, 2007 – MIR3™, the technology leader in Intelligent Notification (IN®) solutions for global enterprises, has signed an OEM agreement with International SOS, the world's leading provider of medical assistance, international healthcare, security services, and outsourced customer care to deliver MIR3's Intelligent Notification technology--two-way phone, cell, SMS, email, and pager capability at any time, any where - to clients globally through International SOS Online Services.
"When combined with the International SOS global network of Alarm Centers, the joint solution ensures the accuracy and availability of the latest client information, such as medical condition, family contact details, and certification for air evacuation." Todd Schofield, chief technology officer of International SOS, said, "At International SOS, we are constantly looking for innovations that can further improve our emergency response infrastructure. Delivered through our Online Services tools, the coupling of the MIR3 intelligent notification engine with our global network of 27 Alarm Centers will enhance the speed and cost efficiency of our emergency response infrastructure."
“The MIR3 fast, secure communication platform is a natural solution to the demanding notification requirements of a leading global enterprise operation such as International SOS,” said Dan Long, chief technology officer at MIR3. “Our global infrastructure ensures the success of our partners.” MIR3’s inWebServices™ product allows OEM partners to tightly integrate MIR3’s communication engine into their applications and infrastructure. Built on secure, enterprise-grade technology, inWebServices bridges the gap between all standard forms of communication to enable high-speed two-way communications to tens of thousands of users and devices across all modalities, including email, wireless pager, PDA, landline, mobile phone, satellite phone, TDD/TTY, fax, and two-way SMS. MIR3's notification capabilities can also be used for routine high- volume messaging and all-purpose broadcasting such as administrative notices to employees, messages for coordinating staffing and schedules, and delivering important, auditable information to customers.
About International SOS
International SOS is the world's leading provider of medical assistance, international healthcare, security services and outsourced customer care. With 5,000 professionals operating in over 70 countries, International SOS helps organizations manage the health and safety risks facing their travelers and global workforce. Working in some of the most inhospitable places on earth, International SOS offers international standards of medical care where it is not available or where cultural and language barriers exist. For more information , visit www.internationalsos.com, phone Petrina Ong at +65 6330 9826 (Singapore) or email petrina.ong@internationalsos.com
Source: Vendor Press Release
MIR3 Announces International SOS OEM Medical Alerting Agreement
Strohl Systems Releases LDRPS 10.2 featuring tighter integration with NōtiFind
KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa.--[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- Sept 17, 2007- Strohl Systems® announced today that the latest version of LDRPS®, is now available. LDRPS 10.2 features increased integration with Strohl’s emergency notification system NōtiFind®. In addition, through the improved Plan Navigator™ feature, the new version enables users to build custom interfaces for their users, streamlining and strengthening their plan building efforts.
The new integration claims near real-time synchronization of data between LDRPS and NōtiFind and still enables users to contact entire organizations or those assigned only to specific plans. In addition, NōtiFind enables users to contact people assigned to core components such as applications, hardware or business processes.
“This new functionality in LDRPS 10.2, in conjunction with NōtiFind, provides a much more powerful duo,” said Eric Strohl, President of Strohl Systems. “Organizations will be able to use LDRPS and NōtiFind together to specifically target their business continuity communications based on their at-time-of-disaster needs.”
The new features and NōtiFind integration are available in all versions of LDRPS – Essential, Professional and Enterprise – as well as in OnDemand, Hosted and perpetual license versions. NōtiFind is powered by Varolii.
Source: Vendor Press Release
San Diego City Mayor Unveils Reverse 911® Broadcast System
$180,000 Reverse 911® system has the capacity to make two 30-second voice mail broadcasts a minute, giving the City the ability to broadcast to a total of 11,520 devices in an hour.
San Diego, CA - [EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- Sept 6, 2007 - As part of National Preparedness Month and to further highlight the City’s increased ability to respond to emergencies, Mayor Jerry Sanders today unveiled the City’s new Reverse 911® emergency notification call system. The system can optionally deliver emergency messages to as many as 240,000 households and businesses in an hour.
Reverse 911®, recently acquired by PlantCML, Inc. from Sigma LLC, is web-based, community-alerting system is designed to make mass telephone calls to the public in a timely manner during emergencies or disasters. The system uses a combination of databases and GIS mapping technologies to quickly target and effectively disseminate emergency notification calls to a precise geographic area.
The City of San Diego purchased Reverse 911® as another tool to rapidly broadcast emergency notifications to the public in the event of an emergency. The system hardware, software and three-year contract cost $180,000. The system was paid for with Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) Homeland Security grant funds. Additional per event pricing for the Mass Call® feature during large emergencies wasn't specified.
When activated, the Reverse 911® system uses the 911 telephone database to initiate a voice mail broadcasted message via landline telephones to San Diego residents and businesses in the affected areas. A taped message delivers instructions on how to proceed during the ongoing emergency. Individuals using non-landline cellular and VoIP phones can also register their numbers online to receive the emergency calls.
When would be Reverse 911® be activated?
Reverse 911® would only be activated for the following emergency situations:
- Evacuation notices
- Imminent or perceived threat to health, life or property within the City of San Diego
- Disaster notifications
- Public safety tests to verify data accuracy and system operability
- The Reverse 911® system offers a variety of features designed to meet small, medium, and large-scale—including citywide—notification needs.
- For large-scale disasters and emergencies, the City has the ability to activate the system’s Mass Call® feature. This feature provides the ability to use a remotely located telecommunications hub with the capacity to make up to 240,000 30-second community emergency calls per hour.
- During small- and medium-scale emergencies, the Reverse 911® system has the capacity to initiate two 30-second voice-mail broadcasts a minute, giving the City the ability to broadcast to a total of 11,520 telephony devices in an hour.
- If more than the 11,520 voice-mail broadcasts are required in an hour, the City of San Diego can request assistance from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department via mutual aid. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department utilizes a similar Reverse 911® system which includes landlines within the city and can effectively double the broadcasts per hour to 23,040. When more than 23,040 calls need to be made in a given hour, the Mass Call® feature can be activated.
- An incident occurs and is reported.
- Reported incidents are routed to the San Diego Police Department Watch Commander.
- The Watch Commander initiates the relay of information through a prescribed chain of command.
- The information ultimately flows to the Deputy Chief Operating Officer for Public Safety and Homeland Security (DCOO).
- The DCOO notifies and consults with the Mayor, Chief Operating Officer, and Communications Director (Executive Team).
- Executive Team makes the decision to issue or not issue the Reverse 911® call.
- A series of final organizational steps are followed until the message is ultimately launched by the San Diego Police Department Communications Division.
- Notification ares are defined by subject matter experts (Fire, Police, Water, etc.)
- The number of required calls is calculated by the system based on the defined area.
- The City Executive Team decides on the appropriate call areas and approves the capacity deployment.
The City of San Diego Police Department is the entity that broadcasts the actual Reverse 911® emergency notifications to the public on behalf of the City of San Diego. Although cellular phone numbers and VoIP numbers are not currently in the system database (because it only contains landline telephone numbers), these numbers can be added to the system. To receive Reverse 911® on a cellular telephone or VoIP, an individual needs to complete the Reverse 911® Cellular/VoIP Addition Authorization Form on the City of San Diego Office of Homeland Security webpage at http://www.sandiego.gov/ohs. Persons using a TTY/TDD phone system will also receive Reverse 911® notifications.
Source: San Diego City Press Release
3n Launches InstaCom™ Campus Alert 2.0 Mass Notification Solution
Mass Notification Solution Targeted to Emergency Communication Needs of Colleges and Universities
GLENDALE, CA --[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- September 5, 2007 – 3n (National Notification Network), a global mass notification system provider, today announced the availability of InstaCom Campus Alert 2.0 with enhancements to meet growing demands from colleges and universities.
Version 2.0 to provide enhancements including:
- Extended support for university-controlled self-registration portals,
- Bulletin board-style call-in capabilities supplemented with sophisticated privacy and security features,
- Advanced message-recording options for ease of use and maximum message effectiveness, and
- Live call transfers.
3n’s InstaCom Campus Alert 2.0 is designed to provide colleges and universities with a scalable, cost-effective and quick-to-implement solution for targeted and campus-wide critical communication needs ranging from routine communications to emergency notification. The 3n system also claims up-to-the-second reporting of who has received and confirmed messages so administrators can gauge communication effectiveness.
3n provides InstaCom Campus Alert 2.0 via a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery model with multiple data centers in an active-active configuration. SaaS enables customers to access software over the Internet without purchasing or maintaining hardware, software or telecommunications equipment. According to 3n, with active-active data centers, data is continuously replicated between data center locations. If service is disrupted at a data center location, all traffic is dynamically rerouted to a different site so that 3n's systems remain continuously available with no failover delays.
According to Larry Hincker, associate vice president of university relations at Virginia Tech, “The 3n InstaCom Campus Alert system is a sophisticated tool that is easy to use. I believe it can only further benefit our students, faculty, and staff.”
Source: Vendor Press Release
St. Lucie County's New Emergency Notification System Becomes Operational
Fort Pierce, FL --[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- Sept 4, 2007 - St. Lucie County Public Safety, in collaboration with the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office, St. Lucie County Fire District, Fort Pierce and Port St. Lucie Police Departments, has taken a significant step in upgrading the ability to communicate critical emergency information to its residents. St. Lucie County Emergency Notification System (SLCENS), an automated telephone message delivery system, was activated on Sept. 1 and is now operational.
SLCENS can quickly deliver a voice message to telephones throughout St. Lucie County. The system will be activated and calls made to the affected community during emergencies in which there is a threat to life or property. Examples of such emergencies include critical missing person reports, natural disasters, hazardous materials or wildfire evacuation orders, and alerts of other eminent dangers.
Using a database that contains all of the telephone numbers in St. Lucie County and an integrated mapping program, SLCENS is able to isolate any specific geographic area and display the exact list of residential and business telephone numbers within it. For example, authorized personnel could identify all numbers within a half-mile area of a specific address within the county. St. Lucie County Public Safety, Sheriff's Office, Fire District, Fort Pierce or Port St. Lucie emergency response personnel are then able to create and send information or instructive messages to those telephones. SLCENS recalls numbers that are busy and leaves a message on phones that have a voice mail or answering machines.
SLCENS is able to reach as many telephones as the AT&T system can accommodate, possibly delivering as many as 30,000 messages in less than 10 minutes. All outgoing messages are in English, call recipients will be given the option to select Spanish if desired. FirstCall can deliver messages in more than 140 different languages. FirstCall of Baton Rouge, La., owns and operates the high-speed notification network on which SCLENS operates. FirstCall maintains 1,728 dedicated phone lines via a diverse entry fiber-optic network for outbound message delivery and is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by certified emergency notification personnel.
St. Lucie County residents with unlisted numbers can register for participation in the emergency telephone notification process. The privacy of these telephone numbers is protected under the normal non-disclosure agreement that FirstCall has with its clients. FirstCall Network also geo-codes cellular or wireless telephone numbers provided by residents or from the registration process.
Registration for the St. Lucie County Emergency Notification System can be done in three ways:
- 1. On line at www.firstcall.net and select Unlisted Registration.
- E-mail unlisted@firstcall.net , list your name, phone number, street address, city, state and zip code.
- Telephone by calling 1-866-484-3264. This process is very user friendly. Once the submitted number has been entered into the system, the person registering will then receive a message via the submitted number as a call back from the system confirming their registration.
Source: St. Lucie County Board of County Commissioners