COMMUNICATIONS
During any large-scale event , effective communication is absolutely vital to ensuring that the event is managed well and that any incidents ( medical and non-medical ) receive timely and adequate responses . A major challenge often encountered is communication among the various entities participating and the multitude of staff involved . There often are a number of agencies involved , using different modalities to communicate to their own participants and employees , and these different modalities often do not cross-communicate well . It can be challenging to find a similar base modality , such as radio or cellular , for example , that each participant would have access to and be able to use effectively .
During The World Games 2022 , proper communication was identified early as an essential factor in ensuring that medical staff would be able to respond to any event at the individual venues and maintain situational awareness of events and relevant information related to the event as a whole . On the medical side , our communication plan was multifaceted , to ensure that redundancy in communication was present in the event that one modality failed at a critical time .
A central medical volunteer command center was established at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Center that had at least two dedicated personnel present while events were taking place during the entirety of The World Games . This command center , which was separate from the main Unified Command Center , was dedicated to ensuring that the needs of on-site medical volunteers for spectator and athlete first aid were met , and it also ensured that any pertinent information from The World Games Unified Command was quickly disseminated to the on-site medical teams . The command center was staffed by UAB Health System Emergency Management personnel or their designees , with 24 / 7 access to UAB Health System incident commanders and medical aid branch chiefs / leads for answering questions from frontline staff .
VARIOUS COMMUNICATION MODALITIES AND DEVICES WERE UTILIZED , INCLUDING :
• Southern Linc push-to-talk radios with cellular capability
• Personal cellular devices with text and voice communication capability
• Push-to-talk VHF / UHF radios from the Birmingham Fire Service
• Email alerts
• Nixle text groups
• AT & T First Net Wi-Fi hotspots and base stations
• Language Lines Solutions interpretation software
The World Games Playbook : Event and Medical Overview 27