Not all Talk: Two-Way Digital Radios Power Integrated Communications

Communication plays a critical role in public sector organisations, impacting on everything from emergency response to community engagement.

It’s fundamental to human interaction and advances in technology have had a profound impact on the way we connect and communicate.

Clear, robust and reliable communication is also critical to the smooth running, safety and security of public services, those who provide them and those they benefit. It impacts everything from emergency response to community engagement.

Technological advances mean two-way digital radios have emerged as powerful tools that address the ever-evolving communication needs of various public sector organisations.

To be clear, we’re not simply discussing “walkie-talkies” here. The latest two-way radio systems offer an array of powerful, integrated functions beyond voice. These include SMS messaging, GPS location tracking, telemetry, Bluetooth functionality, PBX telephone interconnectivity, potent task management tools and much, much more.

They can be seamlessly harnessed to business-critical applications and yield invaluable management insights, empowering organisations to enhance efficiency, productivity and safety.

• Digital Radio Does More
• Signalling Virtues
• Public Sector Procurement - Perfected
• Tune-in

Digital radio Does More

The sophistication of today’s digital radio technologies empowers managers not just to deliver reliable and effective communication, but to refine and optimise business performance.

When Avoira harnessed Motorola’s MOTOTRBO two-way digital radio with CARPS - a sophisticated clinical task management system - it empowered Sodexo to revolutionise domestic, cleaning and portering services at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

This solution not only enabled the automatic logging, routing and tracking of tasks, but allowed Sodexo to radically streamline the whole process by empowering clinical staff to instruct porters directly.

This “self-service” system removed the need for busy nurses to telephone helpdesks to book tasks, and, frustratingly, often be put on hold.

The solution also captures an impressive range of metrics for performance measurement, with every call and status change logged and time stamped. These allow quick and easy generation of management reports to inform operational practices and maximise productivity.

Whilst CARPS is a healthcare specific solution, the integration of the latest digital radio technologies with other task management systems can offer similarly powerful benefits to administrative and facilities managers.

The fact that radios can now incorporate features such as incredibly accurate multi-constellation GP tracking, lone worker alarm and man down functions also makes them ideal for safety-sensitive locations and roles. Those may range from prisons and secure health facilities to pretty much any public building requiring security patrols.

Signalling Virtues

Equally important as the quality and power of digital radio systems, is the expertise necessary to design and implement an effective solution.

Ensuring site-wide network coverage can be challenging. It’s important to get it right because any “deadspots” may not only impact operational efficiency, but the safety of staff.

Strategic deployment of antennas and repeaters can ensure radio signals cover otherwise hard-to-reach areas such as lifts and basements.

With such a wide choice of two-way radio systems on the market, securing impartial, expert consultancy advice will also more likely yield specification of best-fit technologies, independent of vendors’ own sales agendas.

Public Sector Procurement - Perfected

Understanding and experience of how the public sector works is also crucial.

It’s a topic in which Avoira are expert having served an enormous variety of public sector organisations, spanning primary, secondary, further and higher education, emergency services, local and central government, healthcare and transport.

As such we’ve have earned inclusion on numerous public sector procurement frameworks, including Crown Commercial Service (CCS), enFrame, ESPO, Crescent Purchasing Consortium, Jisc, KCS Procurement Services and Procurement Assist.