De Waalboog has the first cloud based NEN2575-4 evacuation alarm system

The care organisation De Waalboog (Nijmegen, the Netherlands) improves fire safety by installing the first Private Cloud NEN2575-4 evacuation alarm system.

De Waalboog is one of the larger healthcare organizations in the Nijmegen region (Netherlands) and the first healthcare institution where Kiwa R2B, as an inspection institution specialized in fire safety, has issued an inspection certificate for a wireless Cloud-based NEN2575-4 evacuation installation. With this certificate, the Waalboog demonstrates that the alarm system complies with applicable Dutch and European legal requirements. Notofications are send on smartphones.

Pagers

Edwin van Troost, Manager Operations fire and evacuation alarm systems Kiwa R2B:

“The advantage of a smartphone solution compared to a traditional pager system is countless. When checked, it often turned out that pagers were not used, were lost or were broken. You always carry the smartphone solution from MultiBel. Moreover, you are not dependent on one transmitter and with this Cloud solution a much higher availability of the system is realized than with a traditional pager system.”

Also Leon Eijkhout, Asset manager at De Waalboog, emphasizes the advantage of a wireless solution:

“At a certain point we only had 6 or 7 pagers. Now we have 34 smartphones. That’s a huge fire safety upgrade.”

Wim Kruithof, Manager Real estate & facility services at de Waalboog:

“It will soon become a very big advantage if the evacuation system is linked to the nurse call system and the emergency response notification system. You can mobilize everyone much faster. With a cloud solution it is easy that you no longer have pagers, no more walkie-talkies and you have lost checks and controls necessary on this.”

Healthcare

The K21047 certification scheme has been drawn up for companies that wish to obtain certification for installing and maintaining wireless silent alarm systems. In the healthcare sector, a good evacuation system is of vital importance because patients or residents are not self-reliant or are unable to flee themselves. That is why they are legally obliged to have a NEN 2575-4 certified silent alarm evacuation system.

MultiBel

MultiBel was certified by Kiwa in November 2020 with the K21047 WSAS (Wireless Silent Alarm System) (see news article). This was an important step to be able to use MultiBel as a fully cloud-functioning evacuation alarm system. MultiBel is the only organization in Europe with WSAS certification.

The implementation of an evacuation installation in the cloud at the Waalboog was the result of a collaboration between Dräger and MultiBel. De Waalboog is the first healthcare organization to receive the certificate from Kiwa, but there are more organizations (both hospitals and healthcare institutions) where the implementation is at an advanced stage.