SOS Alarm, Sweden: One call saves lives

To quickly handle every complex emergency situation, SOS Alarm upgraded its Emergency Response system, CoordCom

Dealing with life-threatening situations requires the quickest, most effective response. Each time the Swedish emergency phone number 112 is dialed, SOS Alarm is ready to act and dispatch the rescue services needed. Whether it is a fire, road accident, crime or medical crisis, the caller in distress will receive support and lives can be saved. To be able to meet the required response times and to handle every complex situation, SOS Alarm invested in Ericsson’s Emergency Response system – CoordCom.

Per Palm, Technical Manager SOS Alarm comments: “We are using the Ericsson CoordCom system as the backbone of our business. We’re using it for call handling, radio communication and telephone communication, and the benefit is that it is integrated into one system. We can work as a virtual call center throughout the country which means that we can help each other, we can distribute a task among different sites, and we can use the staff in an optimal way.”

Linked together

The CoordCom system supports multi-agency operations, linking all operating centers across the country together and with all rescue services. Using flexible, distributed architecture that integrates voice over IP for real-time communication, coupled with free geographical seating capabilities, enables staff to work in parallel to manage large incidents. This means more streamlined operations, bringing significant cost savings whilst maintaining high performance and availability.

Johan Hedensiö, CEO, SOS Alarm explains the benefits: “We’ve been able over the last couple of years to reduce response times without having to add additional staff in our local call centers, through increased cooperation between the call centers, based on the technical functionality of the platform.”

Right people in the right places

For SOS Alarm, the upgrade of its CoordCom system involved an in-depth core network integration of the digital radio network. This means that the teams in the 18 different centers can collaborate together as well as with all rescue services to ensure that the right people are in the right place. It also allows for load sharing of large incidents for situations such as big traffic accidents and Automatic Alarm Management to deal with over 100,000 alarms. These include fire, burglary and private security alarms as well as those from the elderly.

Stable and flexible

One of the greatest challenges was to install a system that is both stable and flexible. Jonny Möllenhoff, Senior Account Manager, Ericsson explains: “CoordCom ensures a reliable emergency response 24/7 and it can also be adapted to integrate new services with the growth of SOS Alarm’s offering.” This is particularly important in today’s turbulent economic climate, as the organization is reliant on skilled people outside of the main emergency teams. The solution is an effective way of linking new people or services into the core system.

Johan Hedensiö, CEO, SOS Alarm explains further: “Based on the CoordCom system we have integrated a lot of other software into this platform to make sure we can work as efficiently as possible to meet our customer’s requirements, and going forward we can see that it will be more and more complex. We will need to meet and integrate other new services and new systems into this platform, and based on our experience so far we look very much forward to develop this further together with Ericsson.”

Customer Profile

SOS Alarm, Sweden

Acting on behalf of the government, SOS Alarm is dedicated to providing support to 9 million citizens in Sweden through the 112 emergency services number. The company’s essential work includes alerting the police, fire and ambulance emergency services, prioritization and routing of ambulance missions as well as playing an important role in emergency preparation services.

SOS Alarm’s mission is to work for a safer society. The organization is 50 percent owned by the government and 50 percent by local authorities and regions.

Website: http://www.sosalarm.se/