A practical example... management and coordination
The 118 system is a service used by citizens for medical emergency. It consists of highly skilled staff which operates on the Italian territory to save human lives.
For this reason coordination, direction and monitoring of personnel and of radio communications are fundamental.
In response to specific requests received from several 118 Operative Centers in Italy, Sinora developed a Generic Option Board (GOB) to meet special needs.
The additional features integrated on the GOB permit an improved handling of responses and of resources; these speial features were released by the Sinora R&D division after rigorous field testing, supported by 118 staff.
 
To support 118 missions, various features were developed for the Motorola DP4000 radio series. The Sinora GOB permits:
  • to send preset status messages;
  • to send GPS position releasing the PTT button;
  • to remote carry out dynamic group assignment (DGNA).
Moreover, radios have additional functions according to the ETS 300-230 protocol, like:
  • emergency codes sending via SMS;
  • group calls creation;
  • duty statuses sending via SMS.
Sending preset text messages permits, by the extended pressure of a numeric digit (from 0 to 9), the delivery of a text message containing a status description (like Dispatched, Active, Arrived, etc.) associated with the pressed button. In addition, GPS location is also transmitted together with sender's status; a beep from the radio indicates the successful or unsuccessful status delivery.
Another option enables the automatic transmission of GPS position to the Operative Center (OC) whenever the radio’s PTT button is released.
The DGNA function permits to OC operators to remotely create radio groups and to assign a radio to anyone of 9 available groups. Dynamic groups can be created, modified and eliminated by the OC, while static groups assigned to a radio via CPS cannot be modified thanks to this function.
Additional features have been developed according to the ETS 300-230 protocol, which are useful for various civil response groups, including 118. These features permit the individual or group emergency codes delivery, confirmation of receipt and reading by the operator after pressing any button on the radio; the also give the possibility to call any radio group or all radios or to send a particular code to a specific radio group to notify them to call back the OC.
By pressing a specifically programmed button on the radio, users can access to the list of preset SDSs and select a status among: Start of duty, End of duty, Dispatched, On site, Loaded, Arrival in Emergency Room.
All the mentioned features were created to efficiently support resuers coordination and radio management on field, both during normal operations and emergencies. Some options were developed in response to requests from some 118 operative units that are our customers, who are satisfied with developed solutions and with modified radio features implemented by Sinora.
All actions carried out (messages and codes sent) are recorded, can be further customized and can be searched through a proper interface that permits to look for a specific date, location, radio ID and code.
An additional advantage of Sinora’s GOB is the integration between radio OC and emergency-response management OC called 118net (the management software preferred by many 118 centers in Italy).
Sinora has developed a software module that allows to special integration between an Interox radio OC and 118net management software. In particular, when a mission is created with 118net software, a message with the emergency code is sent automatically to the engaged radio group.
For this solution we used...