As the new coronavirus continues its rapid march across the U.S., virtually every emergency operations center at the state, regional or local level has been activated and is directly involved in the response.

Since many of the responsible agencies are Haystax clients, we’ve been able to witness first-hand the extraordinary commitment and courage of the professionals who put their lives on the line to ensure their communities remain safe and secure.

Haystax, a business unit of Fishtech Group, has been supporting our customers in California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Virginia and elsewhere as they maintain public order, protect critical facilities and, increasingly, ensure the ongoing resiliency of supply chains and at-risk populations.

We have additionally been impressed by the creativity of our clients when using apps in the Haystax for Public Safety platform to meet multiple mission requirements during the coronavirus response, both in their EOCs and via mobile apps in the field.

From metropolitan police and fire departments to school districts to state emergency management agencies, our clients are using Haystax for Public Safety in the following ways.

• Adding new facilities to the Assets app, such as virus testing stations, pharmacies (image below), nursing homes, grocery stores and food distribution centers – and updating operating hours, contact information, geo-location data, etc. All asset data is displayed on the Haystax Map app so that agencies can coordinate their operations and maintain resiliency in the face of closures and other disruptions.
• Updating emergency plans in the Assets app with key contacts, alternate locations, revised roles and responsibilities, closure and quarantine plans, disinfection protocols and more.
• Establishing formal processes for routine check-ins, incident reports and periodic informational updates using the Haystax Field Reports app.
• Using the built-in ‘blue force’ tracking capabilities in the Field Reports app for awareness of the precise locations of field personnel.
• Managing lists of scheduled events that have been postponed, cancelled or moved to online-only, in the Events app.
• Producing regular automated reports from the Assets, Incidents and Events apps as a way of communicating updates to political leaders and the community.

Gary Fish, founder and CEO of Fishtech Group, said: “We are committed to being a solid partner to our public safety clients as they manage coronavirus responses in communities across the U.S., and will do everything in our power to ensure they have the real-time information and critical software tools they need, along with direct support from our team.”

In recent examples of that support, Haystax personnel added new icons and data layers to the Map app displaying continuously updated information on coronavirus cases in each state, provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (image below), plus data on available hospital beds. They also created a custom channel in the Haystax Threat Streams app dedicated to up-to-the-minute news and RSS feeds relating to the outbreak in each customer’s area of responsibility, plus a new Threat Streams/Map feed for one urban-area customer that displays 911 calls suspected of being coronavirus-related.

Domain awareness and timely information sharing have always been vital to the public safety community, but never more so than during a major crisis that involves multiple agencies and jurisdictions working around the clock across broad geographic areas.

Our commitment is to ensure that they can respond quickly and with confidence every day, and maintain the resilience not just of infrastructure and supply chains but also of a grateful population.

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Note: Learn more about how Haystax for Public Safety can help your coronavirus response teams by visiting our emergency management, law enforcement, fire safety and school safety solutions pages.