Rave Mobile Safety Enhances Smart911 to Help First Responders Address the Growing Mental Health Epidemic

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Jan. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Rave Mobile Safety (Rave), a trusted partner for safety software protecting millions of individuals, today announced important upgrades to its Smart911 technology, adding new fields to Smart911 Safety Profiles to better serve homeless, and transient populations and individuals with mental health and cognitive conditions. The updates allow for 9-1-1 call takers and first responders to gain the needed knowledge of an individual's mental health behaviors and history prior to engaging with them – as these behaviors are misunderstood at times, leading to tragic fatalities for the individual, responders, or both. Moving forward, when 9-1-1 is called during an emergency, those responding can view the Smart911 Safety Profile and apply the appropriate techniques onsite and ensure better outcomes.

"We understand that mental health is something that affects many members of our community and it is our duty to find the tools and best practices to ensure we are equipped to help them during an emergency," said Roger Perez, Departmental Public Information Officer of Kern County. "By partnering with Rave Mobile Safety, we have successfully implemented these changes to our emergency response system, and despite resource constraints, these changes will allow us to more effectively serve our community and keep all parties involved safer."

Rave developed these improved functionalities with their customers to provide much needed additional resources around mental health nationwide. Registrants can upload a mental health crisis plan to their Safety Profiles, which call takers can view during the 9-1-1 call. These plans can contain descriptions of an individual's cognitive behaviors, how to interact with them in different mental states, and their emergency contacts. Additionally, profiles now include subsections where registrants can report erratic behaviors, such as hearing voices or hurting themselves, as well areas to describe suicide attempts and prescription lists related to mental health conditions.

"Unfortunately first responders have become the safety net for those experiencing a mental health emergency. The new Smart911 updates, accompanied by increased investment in mental health awareness training, reflect the need to provide call takers and first responders with the information needed to facilitate the best and safest outcomes for all involved,"  said Alexa James, Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Chicago.  We are proud to partner with the City of Chicago and the first responder community to provide Smart911 to ensure those who are experiencing a mental health emergency are met with the most appropriate intervention and ideally linkage to treatment."

Other important new enhancements to Smart911 include:

• Additional resources for transient populations. Allowing homeless registrants to describe their housing situation and town, state and zip codes to help first responders locate them in an emergency and to receive geo-targeted alerts.
• Improved addictions field. Those battling substance abuse, can include more detailed information around the specific addictions they face.
• Addressing Autism Spectrum Disorder. To help communicate an individual with autism's specific needs, the Autism Spectrum Disorder option now allows additional detail on the approach emergency personnel should take when responding to these situations and the specific behavior an individual exhibits.

"Nearly 44 million Americans suffer from mental health issues and 9-1-1 call takers and first responders are on the forefront of this crisis. These updates to Smart911 improve situational awareness and outcomes," said Todd Piett, CEO at Rave Mobile Safety. "Our customer base was yearning for these types of changes and these enhancements to Smart911 absolutely address that."

About Rave Mobile Safety
Rave Mobile Safety provides the leading critical communication and data platform trusted to help save lives. Used by leading education and healthcare institutions, enterprises and state and local public safety agencies, the award-winning Rave platform including Rave Alert™, Rave 911 Suite™, Rave Panic Button™, Rave Guardian™, Rave Prepare™ and Rave Eyewitness™ protects millions of individuals. Rave Mobile Safety is headquartered in Framingham, MA. For more information, please visit https://www.ravemobilesafety.com.

SOURCE Rave Mobile Safety

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