Keeping firefighters safe and giving them proper rest and relief during an emergency or training exercise is crucial to effective response and saving lives.

Rest and rehab during an event have always been a source of discussion in the fire service, and there are official standards as well. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has issued code 1584, the “Standard on the Rehabilitation Process for Members During Emergency Operations and Training Exercises,” which clearly states the need for a formalized process of providing rehabilitation to firefighters engaged in the physical activities of firefighting or training.

However, the industry has been left up to its own devices in many respects when it comes to this topic.

Most departments realize the need for rehab, but few have formalized their procedures for it. Instead, rehab is usually informal. It typically involves the firefighter coming out of the fire to change out their SCBA bottle with a new one, spending a few minutes opening their coat up to cool down, and having a drink of water.

This gets the firefighter back to work in just a few minutes, but it creates significant health risks for the individual firefighter, and it violates the recommended standards by the NFPA.

The NFPA recommends that firefighters should be sent to a formal rehab for a minimum of 20 minutes to ensure their health and safety. But this can be difficult to coordinate when staffing levels are often a challenge and just a few fire companies may be on a scene.

This is why our developers at Battalion 3 created RehabPro, a simple software solution that works with the NFPA standard to provide a record of formal rehab, track each member with a timer, and minimize time out of service.

The program helps ensure that proper safety protocols are followed, and it provides documentation that the department has followed the standard in the case of line-of-duty injury or death investigations.

RehabPro also provides a return to action (RTA) algorithm, which is a configurable set of rules that checks vital sign trends against time and then automatically flags non-conforming members to be taken out of service. This is designed to protect firefighters from returning to action if they’re not ready and, ultimately, save lives.

When we work with fire departments to implement RehabPro, we deploy our solution on rugged Zebra touchscreen devices such as tablets or mobile computers. Zebra’s hardware provides fast and high-performance access to our software and to other apps as well as voice, data, and on-board cameras.

The touchscreen interface is easy to read, even in sunlight, and the device screen is easy to use with a finger, gloved finger, or stylus—even when it’s wet.

Since they’re designed for use in the extreme environments of industrial, military, and emergency response applications, Zebra spares no effort when it comes to durability and design quality, including the use of Corning® Gorilla® Glass screens for shatterproof resistance and IP-rated sealing against dust and water.

Zebra devices are also engineered to withstand repeated concrete drops and tumbles, and its latest tablets are C1D2 certified against the risk of explosion in the event of fire exposure.

To learn more about RehabPro, Zebra mobile devices, and our complete line of solutions for better fire safety and emergency management, contact our team at Battalion 3 to schedule a discovery call.