Azores’ Emergency Services Receives EENA Award for Use of Hexagon Safety & Infrastructure Software

The Regional Civil Protection and Fire Service of the Azores has received the European Emergency Number Association’s (EENA) Remarkable Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) Achievement Award for its integrated call-taking and dispatching system built on Hexagon Safety & Infrastructure software.

With a dispersed population of approximately 250,000 residents, the Azores suffered from disparities in access to health care and coordination of emergency resources. The Regional Civil Protection and Fire Service of Azores (Serviço Regional de Proteção Civil e Bombeiros dos Açores or SRPCBA) needed a more efficient way to create emergency calls for service, including medical triage, and dispatch responders to handle these events.

To overcome this challenge, SRPCBA selected Hexagon Safety & Infrastructure’s Intergraph Computer-Aided Dispatch (I/CAD) for incident management across the islands, including IPT Triage, an application and workflow based on Manchester Triage System Telephone Triage and Advice protocols. The application and protocols provide a tool for call-takers to determine the health and condition of the caller, which equips responders with better awareness of the patient’s condition and medical professionals with the information needed to determine the level and degree of care required at hospital.

“With the integrated call-taking and dispatching system, SRPCBA has improved the management of emergency and non-emergency calls across Azores archipelago, allowing its population to receive the right care at the right time and at the right place”, said Carlos Neves, president of SRPCBA.

The award was presented last week during the 112 Awards Ceremony at the EENA Conference in Budapest, Hungary.