Situational awareness in Incident management handling

Through my years of Emergency Management training of multiple emergency preparedness organization, the same questions reveal itself:

Do we agree on the same situational awareness on all levels within our emergency preparedness organization?


Let's take a step back and take a look at what defines situational awareness.   

What defines situational awareness?


Situational awareness is the understanding of objects, events, people, system states, interactions, environmental conditions, and other situation-specific factors human performance in complex and dynamic task situations.



My experience indicates that strategies and decisions in an emergency organization often are based on wrong or outdated information. The lack of communication between the tactical, operational and strategic level often leads to bad decisions based on a misinterpretation of the situation at hand. All the participants within an operational and strategic emergency preparedness organization have to agree on the same situational awareness before they initiate operations. 


Additionally, the situation at hand is often complex and constantly changing. Communicating these changes to the emergency preparedness organization is a constant challenge, and demands lots of work for everyone involved.

How can RAYVN increase the situational awareness?

 Share information in a shared communication feed in real-time
RAYVN provide the organization with a shared feed for sharing information in real-time. All participants in the emergency preparedness organization can use the mobile app, or a web browser to get the latest updates on the situation.

 Share images
You can easily view and share images from the site of the incident, which again provides the organization with a significantly better situational awareness. The teams will have a better understanding of what is going on, and be able to define a plan for how to handle the incident in a best possible way. Personnel off-site will get the same understanding of the situation as the personnel that is on-site, and help to get a unified situational awareness.

 All personnel is on the same platform
Our experience shows that organizations tend to use multiple forms of communication when managing complex situations. That being phone calls, SMS, E-mail, and different kinds of social media. By using RAYVN, all communication goes through the same platform, which provides everyone with the same information, in real-time. At the same time, everything is being documented, in one place.

Synergies of using RAYVN

Radio communication is frequently used to connect different levels within the emergency organization. Our customers report that they experience radio silence to a greater extent after starting to use RAYVN. By keeping all communication in RAYVN you know exactly who gets the information, and you can be confident that everyone receives the information that is shared. Reduced use of radio communication also contributes to a reduced noise level in the operation room, which again provides a better environment for managing the complex situation.