EMERGENCY EVACUATIONS
Efficient Evacuations
Dan Harding, Co-Founder and CEO of Sign In App, explains how technology can help to better prepare care facilities for the event of an emergency.
Fire drills are a vital part of a care home’s safety plan- an obligation that every care home must fulfil to ensure adequate systems are in place and all residents and staff are aware of appropriate procedures and accessible routes in
the event of an emergency. However, as important as they are, fire drills are oſten considered a nuisance or disruption and are oſten met with apathy at the thought of having to take time out to evacuate the building.
In theory, running through an evacuation procedure should be a swiſt exercise, undertaken as though a real emergency is present. This, however, is not always the case, especially with the usual confusion that occurs as fire officers try to establish who is present that day. Oſten, this process takes far longer than it should as there is typically no registration system in place to establish who should be on the list in the first place.
It’s fair to assume that a smaller and community-focused care home will have greater visibility of who is there at the time of an emergency but, if an incident occurs and panic heightens, is there a system that can be relied upon? Furthermore, if there are numerous residents, it becomes even more of a challenge as they must rely on carers knowing where everyone is – whether that be in their rooms or in communal areas. As such, the potential of missing a vulnerable resident is significant and the time it takes to confirm everyone has evacuated the care home safely grows even longer – risking potential disaster and distress.
In today’s digitally-enabled world, how can technology help to streamline care home safety whilst also providing peace of
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mind that, in a real emergency, there is full visibility of exactly who needs to be accounted for?
What happens to visitors who are spending time with loved ones in this situation? The pen and paper visitor sign-in book is oſten relied upon to confirm external visitors to a care home, but is notoriously unreliable when it comes to people recording the time in and out of the building. It certainly cannot be depended on for accuracy in an emergency situation. In a situation of high pressure and panic, who will remember to collect the book and also remember which staff members are working on that day? Instead of relying on an outdated pen-and-paper system, a visitor management app which provides a single view of everyone in the building is far more dependable. In the event of an emergency, the fire marshal can instantly view an entire list of people by logging into an online portal through any mobile device.
Additionally, with COVID-19 restrictions on visiting residents easing up as more receive their rounds of vaccinations – how can care homes still make recording visitors for emergency evacuation purposes safe for all? With a contactless sign- in system, that has functionality to assess if visitors have COVID-19 symptoms or have been out of the country and records who is on site both temporarily for visitors and long term for residents, it will offer immediate visibility throughout any emergency situation.
When it comes to staff and visitor management, emergency evacuation procedures need to be reset by utilising simple, affordable technology solutions to put appropriate safeguards in place. Not only will this speed up the process of required fire drills, but also put minds at ease that, in the event of a real-life emergency, a person will never be leſt unaccounted for.
www.signinapp.com
www.tomorrowscare.co.uk
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