Hospital EmergencyProduct News

Spring 2015

Emergency

Alert

Messaging

Systems Guide to selecting and using a system

Challenges Facing Video and Digital Signage Security and Alert Displays

Do you have an existing video distribution system that you need to add security and alert

graphics and information to? Do you have a digital signage infrastructure and need to interrupt it

for alert or mass notification purposes? In light of escalating terror threats and their increased

sophistication, heightened information awareness is required. Offices, schools, campuses,

military facilities and any other building or area require instruction during emergencies. It is no

longer enough to sound an alarm that means “something is happening”. People must be

informed of what is happening and what to do. But there is rarely budget available to tear out an

existing infrastructure and start from scratch. Effective security and mass notification often must

be added to and integrated with the existing infrastructures. These scenarios pose certain

challenges that must be considered, including:

What is the video distribution format? NTSC, PAL, HDMI, HD-SDI, IP, etc.

Do you have live video (i.e. set-top-box, cameras, etc.)? What do you want to do with it?

Squeeze it and add graphics around it, overlay graphics on top of it, or replace it with full

screen graphics?

What is the nature of the Alert? Weather advisories? Industrial Accidents? Homeland

Security? Military Action? Missing Persons? Some or all of the above?

Who is authorized to “trigger” an Alert? What is their interface?

Who is creating the graphics or templates and what tools are available?

What level of quality of the graphics and text is required? Very basic text or broadcast

quality graphics with crawls and animations?

Does the Alert display system need to retrieve external information? RSS feeds, Web

site info, XML, Excel, HTML, etc.

Does the Alert display system need to be driven by other systems? Fire alarms, Public

Address systems, Crestron, GPI contact closure, RS-232 serial control, etc.

Reliability and Support? Do the companies you’re working with have experience and a

history of the involved technologies? How well will they support you?

Video Distribution Format

Every facility is different. There are different flavors of video distribution, different flavors of

digital signage distribution and different flavors of networking. Every situation has its own

unique set of challenges. Are you still SD distribution? Are you HD distribution? Are you SD

looking to upgrade to HD someday?

Many existing infrastructures are still analog NTSC or PAL distribution over coax or other.

Pulling old cable and running new cable and replacing screens can be prohibitively expensive.

Certainly, the older NTSC and PAL video formats that have been in place for a half century are

easy and understood; there’s one cable with a known format and connector that every different

piece of equipment in the infrastructure knows and speaks.

HD changes all that. There are different resolutions, including 720p, 1080i and even 4K,

different cables, different connectors, HDCP and various other challenges.

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There are several choices. Native SD only systems will be less expensive. They will also be

more “video centric” in that they will handle NTSC or PAL video directly. They’re video-based

as opposed to computer-based. But they will have a limited lifespan as time marches on and

everything becomes HD. However, in many current infrastructures that may still be a long time

away.

Another choice would be to invest in alert display systems that support SD and are upgradeable

and / or switchable to HD. Your initial investment up front may be little more, however the

switchover to HD would be more seamless and perhaps more cost effective.

HD-SDI is the most prevalent high-end video distribution that’s not IP based. It is generally

used in broadcast and cable head-end environments. It is a well-known and high-quality format

and the equipment to support it will be commensurately priced. However, you would have the

ability to “squeeze” or “overlay” live HD video with real-time Alert graphics and information.

Live Video

Adding graphics to live video is very challenging. Live video can be a television channel from a

cable or satellite set-top-box, security or monitoring camera feeds, town meeting feeds, House of

Worship feeds, campus channels or a variety of other sources. Regardless of whether the input

source is SD or HD, adding graphics to a live signal requires having some sort of video capture

card or device that can be somehow combined with the graphic content.

A lower cost USB analog NTSC external capture device is sometimes used. However the

resulting live video window is generally a separate static overlay on top of the graphics and

allows no dynamic control of the size or positioning of the window. In other words, it’s always

pinned sitting on top in the same size and position.

Higher end HD graphics capture is more expensive. However with a professional quality capture

card, the live HD video can be integrated into the content itself. For example, a live video

window can be “squeezed” to any size and resolution and positioned in different locations on

different “pages” of the content. Or, the window can be a “layer” with graphics both in front and

behind it. Or, the live video can be full screen (i.e. full resolution) with graphics such as lower

thirds, crawls, bugs (i.e. logos) overlaid on top. In addition, the graphics can have a level of

transparency (i.e. alpha channel) that allows the overlaid live video in the background to slightly

show through. There is more flexibility in a higher end integrated capture card for varying

resolutions as well as support for multiple formats including analog HD, digital HD over HDMI

and HD-SDI over BNC coaxial cable.

Types of Alerts

Older traditional alert systems such as fire alarms, store alarms, etc. may set off loud sirens and

flashing lights to let you know that “something” is happening, but they don’t give you any

information regarding what is actually happening or what to do. “Mass Notification” is the

process of not just raising an alarm, but giving people meaningful information and instructions

regarding the emergency. Fire, Weather advisories, Industrial Accidents, Homeland Security,

Military Action, Missing Persons, and more are examples of the myriad of possible events that

require notification, information and instruction. Along with informational distribution methods

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such as text messaging, email, strobe lights and audible announcements, digital signage

represents an additional mechanism to inform the public during emergency situations.

To address these needs, the alert display systems needs to be able to dynamically, in real-time,

interrupt whatever is currently displaying and replace it with appropriate emergency messaging.

In addition, after the emergency is over, the display needs to be restored back to its original

condition.

Taking it a step further, the emergency alerts themselves need to be relevant to the alert at hand,

and in real-time, be able to convey appropriate action to the viewer. For example, an alert

message that says “Exit the building using the rear stairway. Avoid the front stairway.” is more

informative than “Please exit the building.” This implies both the ability for the emergency alert

to not only interrupt the active display with relevant alert pages, but that the page has the ability,

in real-time, to display dynamic text information in a clear, readable format. In addition, the text

information will be delivered remotely across a wired or wireless network from some external

source that may or may not be nearby the alert display player.

Also, along with the visual Alert display, it may be desirable to have audio cues. It can be as

simple as generating some tone or alarm to draw attention, but an effective Alert systems should

have the ability to attach audio to the alert message.

Who and How Are Alerts Triggered

Every situation is different. The digital signage may be in a restaurant, mall, government

building, corporate building, military base and more. It can also be PEG channel, local

government, campus, worship, and other television broadcast channel distributions.

The roles of the personnel authorized to issue an Alert varies greatly in these situations. In fact,

in most cases, particularly larger installations, it is likely that the personnel authorized to initiate

an Alert are not at all the same people who are managing the normal daily digital signage and are

unlikely to be familiar with the digital signage tools and interfaces.

In these cases, it is desirable to have a system capable of managing the day to day digital signage

through an interface appropriate for that purpose, yet also allow for that digital signage to be

interrupted through some different “Alerting” interface. This Alerting interface should permit a

credentialed Login process whereby only certain authorities are permitted to access and generate

Alerts. This interface should be simple and predefined whereby the various possible Alert pages

are easily selectable. In addition, some number of dynamic text fields should enable the

authority to enter real-time information and instructions.

Content Graphics Creation

In many cases, the personnel authorized to initiate an Alert have no knowledge of the underlying

digital signage system or its workings. Someone needs to be the expert on the digital signage

system including its architecture, scheduling, content authoring, triggering interfaces and a

variety of functions. This person may be trained as a graphic artist, a system integrator, a station

engineer or any other number of jobs.

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No mixing easy to use!

A good digital signage system should be easy to use. This means the tools for creating content,

scheduling it, and delivering it to the players needs to be intuitive, robust and simple. There

should also be available a set of samples and templates for different scenarios that can be

repurposed for a given situation. Page layout tools should be WYSIWYG and content

management tools should not require knowledge of any underlying technologies such as HTML,

XML, network protocols, etc.

Output Quality and Features

You get what you pay for. There is an ever growing array of digital signage players and systems

ranging from $50 jpeg players to $1,000 HD players to $15,000 HD-SDI graphic generators to

full enterprise systems costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. What does your situation and

infrastructure require, and at what level of quality? Most of the lower cost digital signage

systems allow the scheduling and playout of images and videos. However they often lack

features needed for effective real-time Alert notification. This includes at a minimum the ability

to interrupt the playing schedule to display an Alert message and the ability to display dynamic

informational text that is clearly legible.

Higher end systems will give you more flexibility and higher quality look and feel. In addition

to SD formats in and out, a higher end system may support digital HD over HDMI, HD

Component and HD-SDI in and out with graphic overlay on top of live video. Additionally, full

screen graphics can be displayed with dynamic text, logos and animations. A versatile play-list

scheduler allows for dynamic programming and smooth, elegant page transitions. The user

interface allows for direct control of a single or multiple Alert systems. Professional Crawl

overlays are broadcast quality, smooth and easily modified. Multiple Crawls can display

simultaneously and can include graphics and logos. Also, HD clip playout with graphics overlaid

and layered. A quality high end digital signage and alert system will include many or all of these

features.

External Data and Interfaces

It may be desirable for your Alert system to be triggered by some other external system such as a

fire alarm or audible PA (Public Address) system. Or it may be desirable to collect and display

information from an external source such as a remote Web or desktop interface, RSS feed, XML,

database or even just a simple ASCII text file. A good Security and Alert system will offer a

variety of methods for external triggering and collecting external information whether by

hardware, software or both.

Hardware triggering can include traditional methods such as GPI (General Purpose Interface) or

RS-232. GPI is a simple “contact closure” signal on a particular pin which can invoke a

predefined ‘macro’ sequence of page displays. Like GPI, RS-232 control is also a hard-wired

connection. However RS-232 commands can deliver more varied and flexible instructions along

with dynamic data. An externally controllable Alert system may have an API (Application

Programming Interface) and SDK (Software Developer Kit) to enable very specific or even

custom control of the Alert messaging and information. Often, the same commands can be

delivered either via RS-232 or IP network socket connection.

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Many fire alarm systems, public address systems, EAS (Emergency Alert System) and

automation systems have the ability to generate these external triggers. For example, Bosch

Praesideo is a leading public address and emergency voice evacuation system. When an audible

alert is generated, a corresponding command can be issued to a ChyTV digital signage device to

display a relevant visual message. Another example would be a Crestron automation system

programmed to tell a ChyTV digital signage device to display specific pages and graphics and

dynamic text. Hardware control via GPI and RS-232 can range from a simple push-button to

enterprise level custom programming and interfaces using the digital signage device simply as a

reactive player.

Software driven alerts can be achieved through a variety of methods as well. Provided the digital

signage system supports an external command protocol, any interface implementation is

possible. The question goes back, to what are the requirements? Who is authorized to “trigger”

an Alert? What is their interface? Who is creating the graphics or templates and what tools are

available? It may be desirable to have a dedicated, simplified interface unrelated to the day to

day digital signage tools that has the ability to interrupt the schedule with the alert. The interface

can be Web based in the Cloud, or it can be a desktop application speaking directly via IP socket

or a number of different network protocols. Or the digital signage device may be able reach out

at regular intervals to an external source of the Alert and corresponding information.

For example, in the PEG Channel (Public, Education, Government) field, smaller budget local

television stations are operated by a limited staff. Often scheduled or automation driven

“bulletin board” graphic systems are used to cycle through public announcements and such. In

an emergency situation, there may be no operator available at the studio to display the Alert. In

use at a number of such stations, a ChyTV HD Alert system gives the station manager the ability

to trigger and alert and “crawl” relevant information overlaid on top of the existing channel by

updating an ASCII text file from something as simple as Notepad. The HD Alert lets you pass

through your normal programming while monitoring for external text-file based emergency

information. If a designated text file shows up in a ‘watched’ folder, the ChyTV HD Alert

system grabs the text information from the file, displays an appropriate overlay graphic on top of

the live programming, and displays the text information in the file using high quality broadcast

effects such as crawls, pushes, fades, etc. When the text file goes away, the alert message goes

away. The alert can easily be generated remotely by any authority and requires no graphics or

operational skill or training.

Reliability and Support

How long has the manufacturer been around? What are their credentials and expertise? How

accessible are their experts? Is Customer Support knowledgeable about the products and willing

to spend time supporting it, or is it an off-shore calling center? An effective Alert system is

likely to be somewhat custom and perhaps complex. Canned off-the-shelf solutions generally

won’t handle real-time Alerts in a timely and effective fashion. Does the company have the

expertise necessary to help with custom solutions and unique problems? Will you have access to

those people? Have they integrated systems in these situations before? Is custom engineering

possible to add new features or modify program behavior?

Be Prepared

It seems the world has become smaller and more threatened over the years and that doesn’t

appear to be improving. Security, Alerts and Mass Notification are becoming more necessary

than ever. To truly address Alert notifications from a visual aspect, the alert display system must

be reliable, flexible and capable of displaying real-time, relevant information in an easily

readable format.

Are your formats supported? Is live video (TV, camera, etc.) a requirement? What is the nature

of your Alerts, and who is authorized to trigger them? What external controls and remote

information are required?

Don’t think in terms of alert products. Think in terms a complete Alert Solutions.

The ChyTV product line from Digit Signage Technologies has a long history of successful and

reliable installations in a variety of facilities, including Capitol Hill, military bases, Navy ships,

college and university campuses, PEG channels and more. Experience matters.

Author:

Jim Altemose, President

Digit Signage Technologies / ChyTV

jim@chytv.net

631-845-2162

Sled2GO

by EVACUSLED INC.

YES! … It’s quick, easy, no fuss, no muss!

No bed mattress, no carabineer, no belay, no repacking required

Yet still with EVACUSLED’s Gold Standard patient care centered

device with underside wheel system designed for one rescuer

evacuation

INTRODUCING

EVACUSLED

Designed For:

• ICU Patients in TotalCare and TotalCare

Sport Beds

• Gurney/Stretcher Patients

• Wheelchair Bound Patients and LTC

Residents

• Evacuations / Transfers from ICUs, PACU,

Operating Room, & Interventional Radiology

• Office Buildings, Schools, Fire Departments, EMS,

Ambulance, Retirement Residences and LTC

Design Team:

A joint TEAM effort with Evacusled Inc and

Nurse Management / Emergency Preparedness

Managers in US Healthcare Facilities who

deploy our Evacusleds and/or SuperSleds

Designed As: • Patient care centered

• Simple, quick, easy

• Built in mattress (no bed mattress needed)

• Built in full length spinal board and mattress

• Built in Evacusled underside wheel system

• High patient & staff safety

• High versatility

• Just-in-time training

• Folds into Antifungal,

Antibacterial Pouch.

• Pouch may store in closet,

on wall, or under bed

frame.

• Same pouch size as

Standard Evacusled ICU

Storage Pouch.

• Remove Sled2Go with

built in mattress and full

length spinal board from

Storage Pouch.

• Unroll, wheel side down.

• Ensure underside wheels at head end

• Pull back yellow FootCover.

• Log roll patient onto Sled2Go with built in

mattress pad.

• Secure yellow Foot Cover over patient’s feet with 4

adjustable side buckles for extra security

• Place charts, IV etc in with patient

Head End Orange Straps

• Tighten 2’’ wide 4 Cross Straps to secure in Patient. (green,

red, black, orange)

• Tighten the 2 orange straps at head end so that the internal

spinal board/back board becomes rigid.

• Tighten the Yellow Foot Cover small buckles.

• There are 8 side carry handles

• Lock bed brakes, lower bed, and remove foot board.

• One rescuer deploys from Foot End of lowered bed (if

TotalCare bed, bed can be reverse Trendelenburg).

• One or two rescuers (two

rescuers shown here) can deploy

from the side of the bed

• Sled2Go’s internal rigid full

length Spinal Board and Mattress

Pad ensure high patient comfort

and safety

• Using Foot End Pull Handle,

as per Evacusled, roll

patient along hallways to

the designated evacuation

stairwell.

• Vertical evacuation identical to Evacusled.

• One rescuer only, given the underside wheels

and built in braking system.

Simply fold head end once under, fold the foot end once

under and close together so head end faces up. Insert

Sled2Go back into Storage Pouch. It is that simple.

1) Fold Foot End Under 2) Fold Head End Under

3) Fold once more, like closing a book, so that the Head End lays over

the Foot End with Head End facing up. Slide back into Storage Pouch.

Repacking After Use

For more details please view Evacusled

Vertical Evacuation training video at

www.evacusled.com