SBN

Emergency Preparedness: Our Takeaways from the NEI Summit

People at a conference, maybe the NEI summit.

The Vaporstream attended the NEI Summit in Arizona last week, where we got a chance to talk with a lot of different folks from the nuclear industry about the challenges they face. The conversations provided us with a ton of insight into what can be done to address these challenges. Here are some the concerns we heard people talk about—and what can be done to solve them. 

It’s difficult to meet the 15-minute notification window, especially with the methods—including fax, email, phone trees—that we’re using. 

The key to making the 15-minute window is to use a solution that can send notifications simultaneously to the different groups you need to contact and reaches computers, tablets, and phones as secure messages, SMS/MMS, and email. This ensures that everyone receives the notifications no matter where they are or what device they have with them. By sending the notifications simultaneously, you free up time to focus on the event at hand and reduce likelihood of error—all while meeting compliance regulations.

We’re using customized paper forms that have to be manually created using multiple inputs, which makes it difficult to rapidly fill out and send the forms to the correct people during an incident.

The solution you use should allow you to electronically preconfigure inputs ahead of time, like the kind of event, its classification, PAR and other key inputs as much as possible.

We constantly have to deal with the same process over and over again—reaching out to the first group and then to the second group and then to the third group. Having to repeat processes just to send different groups the same information makes it difficult to keep ERO in the loop. 

A strong incident response solution allows you to arrange in advance who automatically gets notifications—including people from different groups. This way you can ensure that ERO gets a copy of notifications going out to other groups at the same time, keeping them in the loop without you having to repeat a tedious process.

Faxes and phone trees slow us down because we have to manually follow up with people to make sure they actually received the critical information. 

An ideal solution lets you check that messages and notifications have been delivered and opened without you having to take extra steps to confirm it. With an electronic solution you should be able to just glance at the tool for confirmation that notifications have been received. You should also be able to escalate critical messages by sending recipients regular alerts until they respond to emergency notifications.

The solutions that streamline the process seem like they’re too expensive. 

Fax machines can break down and making sure that people received faxes or got phone messages takes time. In the long run, using the current system may actually be more expensive because of the cost involved in maintaining those machines and productivity lost to time spent following up with people. In contrast, strong solutions that streamline incident response processes offer a single hub that stands in for everything—from form creation to sending critical documents to sending notifications to multiple groups. By using a single solution you’re saving money on equipment and saving money by being efficient. You’re responding to emergencies quicker and building trust with stakeholders, allowing you to focus more on the emergency at hand and resolve them quicker than ever before.  

Learn how our solution addresses these challenges and more by checking out our infographic below or downloading it here.

Contributor: The Vaporstream Team


*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Vaporstream authored by The Vaporstream Team. Read the original post at: https://www.vaporstream.com/blog/emergency-preparedness-and-nei/