Zetron, a global leader in integrated mission critical communications technology, today announced it has partnered with EaseAlert, a pioneer in heart-smart Firefighter Alerting Systems (FFAS), to integrate EaseAlert’s pre-alerting solutions with Zetron’s MAX Fire Station Alerting system. The integration enables either a Compuer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system or MAX Fire Station Alerting to trigger vibration and LED notifications directly to wrist-worn devices on firefighters just prior to conventional audible tones being broadcast. The gentle ‘pre-alert’ is designed to reduce the harmful physical and psychological impacts to firefighters of being routinely and unexpectedly startled by brash piercing audible alarms.

“Since day one in 1980 when Zetron introduced it’s first product to market – paging systems for volunteer fire departments – the company has delivered solutions that give firefighters and other public safety teams the ability to respond faster and arrive smarter,” said Richard Wong, Vice President of Product and Engineering at Zetron. “But that only matters if they’re healthy enough to do so. By integrating with EaseAlert we’re now also able to support improved heart health by reducing stress, lowering blood pressure and decreasing the risk of heart attacks in firefighters.”

EaseAlert products were developed specifically to reduce heart attacks. According to Dr. Stefanos Kales’s research published in “Heart Disease Deaths among Firefighters,” by the New England Journal of Medicine, firefighters are up to 14.1 times more likely to die of heart attacks during alarm response than nonemergency duties. In 2020, the National Fire Protection Association found that heart attacks accounted for 53% of all firefighter fatalities, making it the leading cause of on-duty death.

That information didn’t sit well with EaseAlert Cofounder & CEO, Blake Richardson. “We founded EaseAlert with one mission in mind, to reduce stress-related injuries and deaths among firefighters while improving their efficiency on the job,” he said. “Teaming with Zetron to bring heart-smart notification technology to its MAX Fire Station Alerting system helps us accomplish that mission. Together, we’ll bring health and productivity benefits to emergency responders across North America, and eventually the world.”

Zetron’s MAX Fire Station Alerting is a purpose-built communications and operational automation solution, deployed standalone, connected to existing CAD and dispatch systems, or as a component of a fully integrated MAX Solutions mission critical communications platform with MAX Dispatch, MAX CAD, and MAX Call Taking. MAX Fire Station Alerting is the first public safety command and control system to include EaseAlert’s Firefighter Alerting System to improve the health and efficiency of first responders.

Zetron and EaseAlert will demonstrate the MAX Fire Station Alerting and EaseAlert FFAS integration live at the upcoming Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) annual conference in Nashville, TN (USA) on August 7th and 8th. The demo, titled ‘Heart-Smart Fire Station Alerting Enables Teams to Respond Faster, Arrive Smarter, and Stay Healthier’ will be presented at 1:20 p.m. (CT) each day in Zetron’s booth (#1701) in the Expo Hall. Visit the Zetron APCO event page for more information.