How Orion helps Rock Medicine Provide Free Medical Support at #SFPride — “the largest gathering of LGBT people and allies in the nation.”

People are often surprised to learn that Orion has over 5 years of partnership with Rock Medicine (also known as Rock Med), an organization that has been providing free “non-judgmental health care” at events throughout the West Coast for more than 40 years!

RockMed used Orion at this year’s San Francisco Pride weekend, an annual celebration described as “the largest gathering of LGBT people and allies in the nation.”

Rock Med relied on Orion at two large-scale events during the weekend: the SF Trans March on Friday and the larger SF Pride Parade on Sunday, both of which Orion has been supporting since its founding in 2013.

Sunday’s parade covers a large portion of downtown San Francisco. This year, Rock Med was advised to expect record numbers of participants and spectators — so they prepared to support up to 1.5 million people.

Initially, Orion was set up at this year’s event to assist Rock Med supervisors locate medics to match them with patients in need, via GPS tracking. Its secondary purpose was for administrative and logistics communication, through Orion’s push-to-talk technology.

However, due to capacity and coverage issues with the primary radio system, Orion played a much more significant role at SF Pride than initially anticipated.

After several unsuccessful attempts to increase coverage with traditional radios, Rock Med quickly trained teams over-the-air on Orion use. Rock Med teams passed the training down the parade route, from team to team, to ensure those who were out of contact could re-establish communications, this time using Orion.

Without Orion, critical communication between medical dispatch and field teams would have been seriously compromised, taking the focus away from essential medical care and putting lives at risk.

At large events like these, Orion’s technology can help save lives, by simplifying logistical processes without taking attention away from the vital care EMTs provide.

Orion’s powerful platform, versatile features, and ease of use proved it to be a highly useful tool for Rock Med staff at this year’s Pride celebration. It’s a tool that can be quickly and easily integrated across industries and verticals to boost productivity and streamline communication.

“Orion has been an important tool for the Rock Med team over the past five years, helping us save time and focus on the critical patient care we provide,” said Gordon Oldham, Executive Director at Rock Med.

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Header photo by Charlie Nguyen.

Originally published at https://www.orionlabs.io on August 6, 2018.