One button.
Help that knows the room.
Across 17 hospitals at Indiana University Health, Pole Star provides the room-level indoor-location layer behind CriticalArc's SafeZone - so a staff duress alert reaches responders with a precise location, over existing Cisco infrastructure.
Protecting the people who look after everyone else
Healthcare staff face real safety risks - from aggression to medical emergencies - often while moving alone through large, multi-floor buildings. When something happens, the decisive factor is how fast help arrives, and whether it arrives in the right place.
Staff duress is the ability for an employee to discreetly raise an alert for help - by app or wearable button - that immediately shares their identity and precise location with responders.
At Indiana University Health, the goal was to deliver that across 17 hospitals - at the scale of tens of thousands of staff - and to do it on the network already in the ceiling, rather than installing a parallel system building by building.
Raise an alert - and be found, immediately
Staff can call for help from a mobile app or a wearable badge with an alert button. The alert is located to the room and shared with responders - who are themselves tracked, so the nearest can move first.
Mobile staff duress
An alert raised straight from a smartphone app - discreet, and always to hand.
20,000 alert-button badges
Wearable badges with an alert button deployed across the workforce.
Room-level location
Every alert carries a precise, room-level position - not just a building.
Responder tracking
Responders are located too, so the nearest available can react first.
Emergency management
A shared, real-time picture coordinates response across the whole system.
The numbers behind the deployment
This isn't a single-site pilot - it's staff safety standardized across an entire health system, built on the network already in place.
The Bluetooth radio is already built into the Cisco Catalyst 9130 access points overhead - so location runs on existing infrastructure, keeping deployment cost and disruption down.
Four layers, from the button to the responder
An alert travels a short, reliable chain: raised on a device, located by Cisco access points, positioned to the room by Pole Star, and coordinated through CriticalArc SafeZone.
Staff app & badges
Duress raised by app or a wearable alert-button badge.
Cisco Catalyst 9130 APs
Thousands of BLE-enabled access points, already installed.
NAO® by Pole Star
The indoor-location engine that resolves position to the room.
CriticalArc SafeZone
Coordinates responders and the emergency response, system-wide.
Faster, located, coordinated
Response that finds the room
Alerts carry a room-level location, so responders don't waste time searching a building.
Coordinated responders
Live responder tracking means the nearest available person moves first.
Protection that follows staff
Consistent cover across 17 hospitals - from the ward to the parking lot.
Built on existing Cisco infrastructure
Reusing the BLE-enabled network keeps cost and disruption down at scale.
The payoff is simple: when a staff member calls for help, the system already knows who, what and exactly where.
Delivered in partnership
Client
Safety & emergency mgmt
Network (Catalyst 9130)
Indoor location
Staff duress that arrives
with the room number.
If your teams need located, coordinated emergency response across many sites, the same approach - room-level location on your existing Cisco network, within CriticalArc SafeZone - can be deployed across your facilities.
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