Alarm Services
30 November, 2023
SCAIP is the primary digital alarm communications protocol used in dispersed housing throughout Europe. Why is it so popular, why is compliance important and how can iotcomms.io help you comply? These are some of the questions we’ll dive into in this blog post. Let’s start with describing what SCAIP is.
SCAIP stands for Social Care Alarm Internet Protocol, and is a digital alarm communication protocol used in the care alarm sector. It is designed to facilitate the communication between care alarm systems and alarm receiving centers responsible for providing assistance and support to individuals in need.
SCAIP is originally a Swedish development that is based on the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) standard, but has evolved into a European standard CENELEC – TS 50134/9). It is the most used digital alarm communication protocol in the care alarm sector for modern technology enabled care.
In the care alarm sector, the SCAIP protocol enables the transmission of alarm signals from care alarm devices to the appropriate alarm receiving platform. These alarm signals can be triggered by individuals who require immediate assistance due to health emergencies, accidents, or other urgent situations.
SCAIP is the primary digital alarm communications protocol used in dispersed housing deployments throughout Europe but it is also used in group living accomodations. In the UK the analog protocol BS 8521-1 has traditionally been used for group livings. A digital version of this protocol were released a few years back named BS 8521-2020, also known as NOW-IP.
Complying with the SCAIP protocol in the care alarm sector offers several valuable benefits. Here are three of the most significant advantages:
By adhering to the SCAIP protocol, care alarm systems from different manufacturers and service providers can achieve interoperability and compatibility.
The protocol defines a standardized format for alarm messages, ensuring that different systems can communicate effectively with receiving centers. This interoperability eliminates compatibility issues and allows for seamless integration of various care alarm devices and software.
It enables care providers to select the best-in-class solutions that meet their specific requirements while ensuring they can work together in a coordinated manner.
The SCAIP protocol enables efficient and reliable transmission of alarm signals from care alarm devices to receiving centers.
The protocol defines the structure and content of alarm messages, ensuring that essential information, such as the nature of the alarm and the location of the individual in distress, is accurately conveyed. This efficient and reliable alarm transmission allows for quick assessment of the situation and appropriate response by care alarm service providers, ensuring timely assistance to the care taker.
It reduces response times, enhances safety, and improves overall care outcomes.
Complying with the SCAIP protocol promotes enhanced care coordination and support.
The standardized format of alarm messages enables agents at receiving centers to get consistent and relevant information about the alarm event. The alarm message in combination with vital details about the individual’s identity, medical history, and specific care requirements provided from separate care systems allow care alarm service providers to give more personalized and targeted support, ensuring that appropriate resources and interventions are deployed.
This enhanced care coordination helps improve the quality of care, enables efficient resource allocation, and enhances the overall well-being of individuals – often elderly people – receiving care services.
iotcomms.io is the leading provider of critical and real-time alarm, voice and video communication as a service in the Nordics. Our cloud-native communication platform and its Alarmbridge service have handled SCAIP communication in numerous care alarm solutions since 2018, enabling providers to offer modern and reliable alarm services to their customers.
Our key expertise in telecom, especially in the SIP protocol, gives us a deep knowledge of SCAIP, as well as an understanding of the protocol fragmentation of the care alarm sector and the challenges this cause. Our expertise, coupled with our cloud experience, have enabled us to design a cloud platform specifically developed for critical communication and that is built cloud-native from the start.
The Alarmbridge offering provides a function that is particularly valuable to solution providers wanting to become SCAIP compliant. The protocol conversion function enables SCAIP compliancy by bridging between SCAIP and other alarm protocols, analog or digital, and even to/from proprietary interfaces using API integration. This means that alarm devices and alarm receiving platforms can communicate with each other even if one end lacks SCAIP protocol support.
Example #1 and #2 above are illustrated in the image below, while example #3 is shown thereafter.
Thanks to the Alarmbridge’s protocol conversion capability, care alarm solution providers can benefit from the values that SCAIP-based alarm communication enables, even though one end does not support the SCAIP protocol.
Beyond bringing SCAIP compliancy, the Alarmbridge offering and the entire iotcomms.io platform offer a wide range of functionalities that your care alarm services can benefit from, such as integrating voice or video communication into the alarm flow or adding interactive voice response (IVR) or call recording capabilities to the alarm receiving center enabling an enhanced alarm service.
Add to this the numerous values of using modern cloud-based services such as faster time to market, effortless scalability, and usage-based charging. By buying alarm, voice and video communication as a service the need to develop own alarm communication is eliminated, bringing own development cost down and need for specialist competence low.
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