Web Conferencing Enabled for All Rescue Hub Agencies

With fire departments and EMS agencies working like crazy to mitigate the impact of COVID-19, we wanted to do something to help them out.

This week, we enabled our web conferencing feature in Rescue Hub for all of our existing agency customers. This feature lets our agencies add an event to the training calendar, and easily designate it as a web conference.

This can be used for a daily briefing, remote training, or anything else that you can imagine where you might not have (or be able to have) everyone in the same room.

Our web conferencing feature uses Zoom, a very popular web video conferencing platform.

Personnel can join a web conference by navigating to the calendar and clicking the “Join Web Conference” button. No need to share meeting IDs or phone numbers, because everything will be right there once the web conference has started.

Once the conference is complete, Rescue Hub will grab the generated video files from Zoom and attach them directly to the event. If someone missed the live web conference, they can go back later and watch the meeting right within Rescue Hub.

Our web conferencing feature is normally a paid add-on to Rescue Hub, however, we are enabling this feature for all of our Rescue Hub agencies at no cost. As a token of our appreciation to our customers, we will continue to keep this feature enabled until “things get better” and the risks to our communities have subsided.

Keep the Time Vampires Off Your Back

Most of us in the Fire/EMS delivery business are acutely aware of the importance of TIME as it relates to emergency response.

  • How much TIME it takes for us to gear-up and get on the road
  • How much TIME it takes for us to respond from Point A to Point B
  • How much TIME it takes to apply water to the seat after the air brakes are set
  • How much TIME from arrival to starting chest compressions

Delivering service to the public effectively and efficiently is where the rubber meets the road, and is where most of our attention should be focused. However, when we look at all the things we do in preparation for emergency response, there are so many things that unnecessarily suck up our “discretionary time” – the time that we have available outside of responding to emergencies to accomplish a myriad of tasks.

It doesn’t matter if we’re paid or volunteer, a firefighter or Fire Chief, an EMT or a Paramedic. We are all faced with things or people who literally drain our time like a vampire sucks blood. The urban dictionary has put a name to a face: “TIME VAMPIRE”.

What is Sucking Your Time Away?

We all deal with Time Vampires in our personal lives, and it frustrates most of us to no end. Calling a customer service number and sitting on hold for 20 minutes. Sitting in traffic. One of my personal favorites, using technology that doesn’t work when you really need it.

As it relates to “discretionary” time in the Fire/EMS business, one of the most important (and time-consuming) things we do is delivering and tracking training. Rescue Hub was built from the ground-up by firefighters to reduce the number of TIME VAMPIRES in this delivery and tracking process.

Here are some examples:

Out-of-Service Time for Training

We all need to be available for emergency calls in our response areas as much as possible. Rescue Hub can reduce the amount of time your crews are out of service (or delayed) for emergency response by front-loading hands-on drills with preparatory information in advance of the drill. This includes documents, videos, and any supporting information to make your hands-on time more efficient.

We can also keep crews available in the their response areas for classroom-type training with our integrated video conferencing feature. For training that doesn’t need a hands-on or in-person component, your crews could be participating in the training from their stations. If they get called out in the middle of training, they can always go back and watch it when they return, since everything is recorded within Rescue Hub.

Developing and Distributing Content

A huge Time Vampire. How long does it take to produce a slide presentation or document outlining a specific procedure, training concept, or task. Could you describe it in 5 minutes or less? If you can, you can use Rescue Hub to distribute a short skill video to your crews. You can use your phone to create and edit the video, upload it to Rescue Hub, and easily distribute it to your personnel. Voilà…Time Vampire eradicated!

Data Entry

How long do you spend in front of your computer entering training or looking for documentation? Probably too long. Rescue Hub makes data entry and tracking simple by integrating it right into the delivery process. Not only can you view skill videos and training documentation on your smart phone, but you can also take attendance at the same time.

Need some help getting the Time Vampires off your back?

If you are looking for less “time suck” from your training, get in touch with us or schedule a demo. We’d be happy to chat with you about how Rescue Hub can help your organization.

Photo Credit: daveynin