Critical event management (CEM) platforms enable businesses and government agencies to proactively prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents that threaten people and assets. These solutions centralize business continuity, natural disaster response, crisis and emergency management, IT risk management, and mass alerting and notification functions in one system. They integrate with key workforce and communications systems to bolster incident response. With a CEM platform, businesses and government teams can create emergency response plans, establish task assignments, plan for "what if?" scenarios, and assess threats in real time to promote crisis prevention. By connecting with GIS tools and communication channels, users can track the locations of all threatened people and provide updates, receive geo-tagged media to monitor incidents on the field and communicate with public and private emergency response officials. After an event has been resolved, CEM platforms enable users to audit data and determine the efficiency of their response, allowing them to alter their response plan for future critical events.
CEM platforms go far beyond the capabilities of emergency notification software, allowing crisis management teams to monitor threats in real time, automate incident initiation responses, promote situational awareness, and improve collaboration to resolve events quicker. While public safety and healthcare officials may interface with CEM platforms for external responses, emergency dispatch teams will often prefer emergency medical services software for the tailored features that support their unique workflow.
To qualify for inclusion in the Critical Event Management (CEM) Platforms category, a product must:
- Create compliant incident plans for a variety of scenarios with task assignments and automated workflows
- Monitor relevant threats in real time and initiate incident response actions when pre-set thresholds are met
- Send secure alerts and notifications to personnel, partner organizations, and public officials, and support collaboration with emergency responders
- Leverage geolocation data to monitor personnel and assets before, during, and after incident response
- Provide post-incident reporting and data analysis for auditing and event response improvement
- Integrate with existing systems to promote alerting, communications, and collaboration
