Traditional versus modern incident management processes: How embracing technology could benefit your event

Emergency and incident management at any mass participation event is a key factor for a safe and enjoyable experience as it’s a preventative and restorative measure to ensure the wellbeing of everyone in attendance.

The processes used in incident management are also what regulators and auditors will scrutinise if something goes seriously wrong or wasn’t managed effectively.

We have seen many variations of emergency and incident response processes in our time. In this article, we’re going to go through the key differences between traditional and modern incident response processes from detection through to reporting of an incident and discuss how embracing technology could benefit your event.

1.?? ? Detection

Traditional

A traditional detection method at mass participation events would be emails, calls and texts from either impacted attendees or event staff. The message would then be delivered to key personnel or the control room for action. From there, a member of staff either in or out of the control room would add the incident to a spreadsheet or project board and then the team would action the response. While the traditional process can still be effective in incident management, it leaves a lot of room for error as well as increases the time it takes to respond effectively.

Modern

While modern systems still rely on notification from attendees and event staff, there are a number of integrations and technologies that support this information coming through to the control room and key personnel faster as well as being catalogued more efficiently. For example, there may be a text line which automatically creates a job for the incident. The system could also catalogue it with time stamping and automatically sort it into a level of priority for response. These automations reduce the room for error and also reduce response time significantly.

Automated notifications between systems such as entry weapon detection, crowd monitoring and built environment systems such as fire alarms, are also a huge advantage modern technology allows us. This automation allows teams to be focused on being proactive where possible and reactive where necessary without also being manually responsible for monitoring multiple systems all at once which can be time consuming and error prone.

2.?? ? Response

Traditional

At the point where a team needs to be dispatched or further action is required to resolve the incident, traditionally a broadcast system would be used to alert all teams to then ascertain who or what team is closest to respond. Once the team has been identified it is then the responsibility of the control room or key personnel to brief the team on the incident and are able to properly prepare.

Modern

New technologies have meant the response time for incidents can be a lot more rapid. This can occur with a number of integrations including staff, GPS tracking and automated alert SMS messaging to both staff and patrons.

Staff resource management is a crucial function to effective emergency and incident management and with GPS tracking as well as intelligent recommendations, you will be able to effectively dispatch the closest team, find locations in green spaces to support best route finding and determine response time prior to assigning the team, allocate more or less staff as needed and GPS track their location and the time it took to reach the incident. Through GPS tracking you would also be able to visualise all active incidents. Geofencing is also another great modern integration that allows you to track staffing levels to ensure they meet designated service parameters and can be re-allocate as needed.

Having visibility of all your maps, CCTV feeds, live traffic and event traffic feeds all on the one screen is also a huge benefit of modern integrations and creates one unified source of information allowing for faster and more considered decision making.

Automated alert messaging is another tech integration mass participation events can benefit from. With it, you are able to automatically notify key staff groups of issues or updates as they occur as well as through the geofencing integration, alert staff when parameters have been breached and need to be resolved. It can even go as detailed as alerting insurance, health and safety and legal teams when needed to ensure the event is on the front foot of managing a situation. You would also be able to utilise this system to alert all patrons of any important information through mass SMS such as weather alerts.

3.?? ? Resolution

Traditional

Once an incident has been resolved, traditionally the team on-ground would submit a detailed report and hand it to a relevant leader for them to catalogue and submit comments or fields within the incident spreadsheet log or project management log. The information would usually be entered manually via a paper form or template from within the project software and if fields have been missed or incorrect information has been submitted, the opportunity to rectify is marginal.

Modern

With advanced technologies in incident management software, this manual process becomes more streamlined and happens as you go throughout the event. The incident report is logged via the job and the organiser can mark required fields, minimising the risk of poor data. There may even be opportunities to customise fields in some software as well. The incident is again time stamped so an overview of response time to resolution is all recorded automatically. A few platforms also allow for deeper collaboration between agencies who may need to be involved on the one incident or job, for example multiple emergency service teams. Through these automations, faster post-incident workflows are created with less errors and in less time for staff on-ground.

4.?? ? Reporting

Traditional

The data and analytics recorded as part of all incident management is essential for post event debriefs as well as how to minimise repeat incidents and inform future events. Through traditional methods, total number of incidents as well as individual audits of each job is generally a manual process with an overall report collated from this analysis which can take up a lot of time if not days. There is usually a designated person or team responsible for collating all this data into a report format or a number of formats relevant for each team.

Modern

Data and analytics is truly where modern technology can benefit emergency and incident management. With much of the logging done automatically through the system, live dashboards, live KPI tracking and filtering all become possible. New KPIs can also be established at any point and evaluation can become more quantitative and less subjective leading to a more fair and transparent evaluation.

This allows relevant parties to see what they want to see and when at a touch of a button. Post event, all data can be exported into whatever format is preferred for each individual team and takes just minutes to pull and export. This creates a completely customisable experience for each user and/or team utilising the platform.

The reporting is also more accurate and can be generated as events unfold rather than retrospectively and leads to higher quality, objective data which is more valuable and useful in litigation and review processes.

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Over the past few years we have seen some incredible advances in technology within the events industry, and as the leading provider of control centre and incident management software solutions, we believe embracing these advances and integrating technology can be the difference in running an industry leading event.

The best events and venues are using technology to become more proactive and less reactive leading to better, safer experiences for patrons. This experience is the future of the control room and why investing in technology is key to the future of experience delivery.

It’s a timely reminder that many legislative and insurance requirements are pushing for higher standards in this space to ensure a duty of care has been met and processes have to evolve to meet these standards. When it comes to investing in an incident management system, we recommend identifying at what point in the above steps, does your current process or system fail or become a pain point for your team. From there you will be able to identify your priorities and find a solution that will work best for your event and team.

While we know every venue and event is different and has its own unique challenges and unique KPIs, the synergy between system, process and people is what will differentiate your event and team from competitors. Chronicler is our innovative incident management platform and is a completely customisable platform that enhances your existing operations, ensuring your team have the right tools to be more proactive and can focus on what they need to. If you would like to learn more about our Chronicler and how the platform could benefit your events, visit our website www.chronosoft.com.au .