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Emergency Communications Adapt to Changing Security Landscape

The capabilities and potential of emergency communication solutions, such as the blue light phone towers and call boxes offered by Code Blue Corporation, are continuing to become more sophisticated and advanced as locations adopt a layered approach to safety and security and manufacturers form partnerships to integrate products.

As Code Blue Chief Design Officer David Fleming told SDM Magazine in a recent article emergency communications “is not a niche.”

Enhancing Code Blue’s industry leading products with options like public address speakers, surveillance cameras, housings for AED devices and more makes them more powerful, as does integrating technology from third parties.

“Today, customers are looking at Help Points® as more than kiosks, Fleming observes, adding that Code Blue has several conversations every week about integrating its emergency communications systems with equipment from other manufacturers. By integrating video with an emergency kiosk, emergency personnel can see the person requesting help; and the video also can do double duty as a deterrent.

“Video also can play a key role in preventing security personnel from creating unnecessary alarm, Fleming explains. He cites the example of a university that received a report of someone with a gun on campus. The person making the report apparently didn’t realize the person was an ROTC student returning a training gun to a supervisor. But in this case, the university was required to report potential threats within a certain period of time of receiving the threat report. If security personnel had been able to look at the reported gun-carrier on video, they might have been able to determine that the person was not a real threat but instead they had to issue an alert, followed by a retraction.

“Fleming believes this will be an increasingly important issue moving forward, as the next version of the NFPA 72 code is likely to include a definition of timely reporting that many organizations will have to abide by. He sees developments such as this driving the security industry to re-invent emergency communications kiosks as technology hubs providing power and enclosure for video as well as communications equipment.”

Code Blue partners with a number of industry experts to provide the best possible systems and solutions. To learn more about how Code Blue’s emergency communication solutions can benefit your location, call (800) 205-7186 or contact an authorized Code Blue Dealer.