Chicomm Blog

Imagine that your business has decided to use two-way radio communication to keep connected while on site or in the field, but no one has ever used one. Employees may voice their unease with the devices, or even worse, avoid using them altogether. They may not understand the importance of two- way radios as a safety tool for them and end up hurt.

Your investment is well spent only if the radios are used and used properly. If your team isn’t trained, they won’t use the equipment. If they aren’t comfortable using the equipment, the system you put in place won’t work the way it’s designed because employees won’t know how. This creates safety issues and increases risk. That’s why proper training and efficient interdepartmental communication is crucial to your success.

We often talk about the communication challenges of loud or busy environments. Manufacturing workers need to be able to speak to each other above the noise of machinery. Hospital workers might need to summon medical help from across the building. Fleet drivers must arrange pickups and deliveries from their locations on the road.

Step into any business or organization these days, and you'll expect to be connected to the building's WiFi network. Connectivity is considered standards anywhere from hotels and restaurants to public parks and, yes, hospitals. But when it comes to healthcare facilities, coverage for all devices—medical devices, cell phones, two‑way radios, and more—is about more than convenience. The ability to swiftly communicate with others could be a matter of life and death. 

When I think about the communications trends among our health care industry clients, one of the biggest emerging themes is collaboration: Hospitals and medical centers are looking for devices, applications and solutions that bring departments, agencies and sites together on the same platform so they can keep in touch to address situations.

Every health care client is different, and within those clients, each department has their own unique communications needs, from the emergency department, to facilities, valet and beyond. As I mentioned in a previous post about school transportation, all of our communications solutions are custom built for each client. Part of our challenge then is to develop systems that work well for each client and all of its parts.

It’s an exciting time to be working in health care, and here are the communications trends that are transforming the industry:

School transportation is one of the parts of running a district or campus that has the most moving parts -- quite literally. Buses and other vehicles have to be dispatched and tracked, student class and activity schedules must be coordinated, and for all of that to happen successfully, reliable communication is essential. Whether your district is large or small, your communications solution is tasked with keeping everything running smoothly and all personnel in contact.

Compared to cell phones, radios offer enhanced durability, reliability and functionality, as well as reduced cost, and they’re an ideal way to centralize communications. Two-way radios and mobile radios are user-friendly, and the overall solution is easily scalable for when districts are ready to expand their capabilities or number of users.

In this blog, I'll share some creative ways to use communications to streamline your school transportation system.