Celebrating its 12th year in 2022, VIVID Sydney is the largest event of its kind in the world. The three-week long festival of light, music and ideas that features the world's best creative industry forums, a mesmerising public exhibition of outdoor lighting sculptures and projections, a contemporary music program and the spectacular lighting of Sydney's iconic buildings and historic laneways.
Showcasing the soul of the city and transforming the everyday landscape into a fairy-tale wonderland, the internationally acclaimed festival is expected to attract over 2.8 million visitors. And while it's hard to go past the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge with their breathtaking installations; this year, the festival boasts the longest continuous 'Light Walk' in the history of the event, stretching 8km and featuring 47 installations and projections on popular landmarks along the route.
What one doesn't see when looking at the beatific scenes, however, are the hundreds of people working in the background to ensure that the event is a safe one - and should an incident occur – there is a professional and highly skilled medical team on site, capable of delivering a comprehensive pre-hospital care response.
Specialising in corporate events, sports events, film and TV, concerts, festivals and special occasions, EMS Event Medical have provided the onsite medical services for the VIVID festival for the past seven years. Representing decades of clinical, field, and logistical experience, EMS Event Medical are made up of over 150 Australia's leading paramedics, nurses, emergency medical technicians, logistics teams, medical support teams and doctors.
This year however, they have additional help: Gardian Emergency medical Services (EMS) is a state-of-the-art proactive and preventive medical assistance software solution that enables the accurate location of patients, facilitating the delivery of urgent care and assistance.
Delivering a world-class emergency medical solution, Gardian EMS comprises proprietary mobile apps and a control system that provides a rapid response to emergency situations by locating, identifying and responding to the person in need.
The innovative platform has been developed for use by appointed event staff including controllers, paramedics, first-aiders, security and volunteers – effectively bolstering the emergency response for the event, supporting triaging and treatments, and enabling the automated entry of data and narratives so that full traceability is provided.
As soon as a situation is identified, those with the pre-loaded Gardian Assist app can press a single 'help' button to notify the control room that medical assistance is required, and an immediate Electronic Patient Care Record (ePCR) is created. Acting as the system engine room, Gardian Control provides a real-time dashboard offering control room operators an overview of personnel location and the status of all alerts, including estimated times of respondent arrival. In addition to assisting with triaging, the software is geo-location enabled so when the alert is received it indicates where the patient is, as well as the location of those closest to the incident. It can also be used to track trends in incident locations.
The controller can allocate the incident to the closest medical team via the Gardian Medic app and once they are on site, they are able to use the platform to complete the ePCR and to manage treatment protocols alongside streamlined documentation and reporting.
To date, Gardian EMS has been instrumental in assisting in the attendance and management of 114 medical-related incidents requiring an ePCR and is already being hailed by the organisers as mandatory for Vivid 2023.
