corpuls.web LIVE: Azores’ civil protection service wins EENA Award 2017

The Azores are a combination of nine larger and several small islands in the North Atlantic. They are located almost halfway between Nova Scotia on the east coast of the North American continent and the coast of Portugal, which the Azores politically belong to as an independent region, forming the most western part of Europe.

Those who have not been to the Azores on holiday yet, can enjoy the region’s exports: tuna, as available at the supermarket in cans, or exquisite pineapples. However, the Azores’ top selling export is free of charge: Every year in summer all Europeans hope for a certain weather condition, which is formed over the islands and carries warm air to the continent: the Azores High.

However, the Azores are not awarded the European Emergency Number Association 112 (EENA) award for beautiful weather, but for an outstanding system of rescue services and disaster management.

The island alliance in the North Atlantic faces specific geographic challenges, influencing the medical emergency care. That is why the civil protection of the region is based on the digital support for all the forces involved:

Starting with the common emergency number 112, the digital application optimization begins. The rescue service, fire brigade, police and civil protection are sharing a joint alarm center for all nine islands, based on the main island of São Miguel since 2016. Each caller of the emergency number is recognized automatically, so that the callback number is immediately available. The interrogation scheme of the service staff follows the Manchester triage system, the rescue squads are equipped with digital radio, and both vehicles and mobile devices can be tracked accurately via GPS.

The Serviço Regional de Proteção Civil e Bombeiros dos Açores (SRPCBA), as the Civil Protection and Rescue Service of the Azores is officially named, ensures the security of nearly 250,000 residents and an even greater number of tourists per year: About 350,000 tourists spend their vacations on one of the nine islands every year.

The main islands are separated by many kilometers of rough Atlantic sea. The Azores expand over a length of more than 800 km. There are no direct connections with bridges between the islands. Only ships and airplanes allow the transfer from one island to the next. What seems to be an idyllic experience challenges the SRPCBAs every day. Rescue vehicles are limited per island, requested air support of a neighboring island is not available within minutes.

In order to enable fast medical assistance to each patient, the Azores rescue service relies on corpuls3 devices with integrated telemetric solution corpuls.web LIVE. The clinics are connected directly to the on scene team via the platform corpuls.web LIVE. Thus, even in case of bottlenecks, a specialist physician is available to diagnose an acute hereditary disorder, immediately – at least virtually. A state of luxury that is still rare in most parts of Europe and still even worldwide.

The EENA committee honored the Azores with this prize for the exemplary implementation of a modern rescue service concept. We at corpuls are proud to be able to contribute a little to this effort by providing corpuls.web LIVE and congratulate the SRPCBA for the win!

Watch the SRPCBA’s Promo Clip as they introduced themselves on this year’s EENA Awards Ceremony 2017: