Firefighting and emergency response are dangerous professions, and a growing body of research and data shows the contributions that job-related exposures have in chronic illnesses, such as cancer, heart disease, and an array of neurological disorders. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recently undertook two large studies focused on firefighter cancer and concluded that firefighters face a 9 percent increase in cancer diagnoses, and a 14 percent increase in cancer-related deaths, compared to the general population in the U.S.

Fire service organizations and individual fire departments have become increasingly aware of the health and safety hazards posed by contaminant exposure and have been working to educate the fire service about ways to reduce those risks. While preventing exposures is in the realm of responder training, tools are now available to monitor responders on the scene specific to exposures to toxic cooling gases and more. Blueforce has been providing shared situational awareness of personal protective equipment as well as industrial gas monitoring for years now. Wearables are now providing solid physiological monitoring so that on-scene commanders can be made aware in real-time when environmental and physiological markers on one or more responders exceeds acceptable thresholds allowing immediate intervention.

Blueforce is proud to announce the BETA release of our new Garmin CONNECT Plugin for BlueforceTACTICAL Android. The Garmin CONNECT Plugin for BlueforceTACTICAL provides persistent monitoring of responder and warfighter physiological markers and makes them sharable in real-time, but also stored in occupational health and safety systems for longitudinal analysis and monitoring. When used with the Garmin INSTINCT 2, the plugin can securely share near real-time readings of:

• Heartrate
• Respiration
• SPO2
• Skin Temperature

The Plugin also allows responders to keep their Android devices in their pockets as Blueforce alerts, notification, and workflows can now be sent directly to the wrist allowing a focus on the incident and not the technology. Blueforce alerts and notifications, sent to the wrist, include:

• Chat Notifications with messages
• EVAC notifications with instructions
• File notifications
• Sensor Alarm Notifications (those on “me”)
• Sensor Warning Notifications (those on “me”)
• PANIC/SOS Notifications from people on “my” team
• Subscriber Sensor Alarms (alarms from others on my team)
• Subscriber Sensor Warnings (warnings from others on my team)

When used with BlueforceEDGE and any of our data gateways, data and alarms can be pushed in real-time to an array of higher echelon systems to include databases, electronic health record systems, cloud IoT (ala AWS), cursor on target, and more.

The Garmin CONNECT Plugin for BlueforceTACTICAL is available now for approved BETA testers. For more information, send an email to info@blueforcedev.com. To request a demo, please complete a REQUEST A DEMO form, or call us at +1 866-960-0204.