Emergency Broadcast in Vocera Platform

Emergency broadcast is a scalable emergency notification feature that you can set at the facility or group level in the Vocera Platform Web Console.

Emergency broadcasts are initiated on the Vocera device when you click the Call button on your Vocera device twice. You can also initiate an emergency broadcast from the Vina app. When an emergency broadcast is triggered, everyone in the group hears the caller immediately—no speech recognition or Genie interactions are necessary.

Note: A Panic Broadcast sends a text that includes the sender and the recipient. If the location is set up, the AP location of the sending device will also be displayed.

Emergency Broadcast at the Facility Level

You can designate an existing group in a facility as the emergency broadcast target group, or add specific members to a group utilizing it as the emergency broadcast target. Each facility can have only one emergency broadcast target group.

Emergency Broadcast at the Group Level

You can designate an existing group as the emergency target, or add specific members to a group which can be used as the emergency responders. However, at the group level, you can have multiple emergency broadcast target groups, each one designated to a different emergency broadcast initiating group.

Default Behavior

If a user is not a member of a group that has a designated emergency broadcast target group, an emergency broadcast is delivered to the facility level emergency target group (if configured). In addition, If an emergency broadcast group is not designated at the facility or group level, the default behavior is to use the emergency broadcast target group set at the Global facility.

If the emergency broadcast initiator triggers a facility-level emergency, it will preempt or cut through any members already receiving a group emergency broadcast.

You cannot designate the Everyone and Everyone Everywhere group as an emergency broadcast group.

Support for Multiple Emergency Groups

If your organization requires more than one emergency broadcast group or needs the emergency group set to a specific functional group, you can do so at the group level. This feature provides the flexibility to meet the emergency needs of different departments, each with their own set of responders.

Facility and Group Level

At the facility level you can designate an existing group as the emergency broadcast "target" group, or add specific members to a group utilizing it as the emergency broadcast target. However, each facility can have only one emergency broadcast target group.

Similarly, at the group level you can designate an existing group as the emergency target, or add specific members to a group which can be used as the emergency responders. However, at the group level, you can have multiple emergency broadcast "target" groups, each one designated to a different emergency broadcast initiating group. For information on setting up emergency broadcast groups, see Setting Emergency Broadcast Groups in Vocera Platform.

Setting Up Silent Emergency Broadcasts

Set up the emergency broadcast group for your site and then specify whether to initiate emergency broadcasts to the emergency broadcast group silently, without playing a chime. See Initiating Emergency Broadcasts Silently in Vocera Platform for more information.

Sending Out Broadcasting User's Location

You set up your system to receive the broadcasting user's location information. See Sending User's Location to Emergency Broadcast Group in Vocera Platform for details.