On any given day, St. Edmund’s Hospital felt like a small town.
Thousands of people moved between departments, wards, clinics, and specialist units. Patients arrived for appointments, families visited loved ones, and clinical teams worked across multiple buildings spread throughout the campus.
Sarah Williams, the Facilities Manager, was responsible for making sure the hospital’s many buildings operated safely and efficiently. Working closely with her was Dr. Amit Patel, a senior clinician who understood how important clear information was during busy and often stressful situations.
One challenge they regularly faced was helping people understand where an incident was occurring on such a large site.
If an alarm activated in the Maternity Block, staff in Day Surgery didn’t necessarily need a detailed floor plan of Maternity. They simply needed to know that an incident was occurring elsewhere on the campus. However, if an alarm occurred within their own building, they needed much more detailed information immediately.
“We need the right information, in the right place, at the right time,” Sarah explained during a planning meeting.
At the same time, the hospital wanted each building entrance to feel welcoming and informative rather than purely operational. Visitors arriving at Maternity should immediately know they were in the right place, while patients attending Day Surgery should feel reassured from the moment they entered the building.
They began to picture how dynamicZM might bring those ideas together.
The dynamicZM solution
dynamicZM displays were installed at the entrance to each hospital block and connected directly to the site’s fire alarm network.
During normal operation, the displays provide simple and reassuring welcome messages.
A visitor entering the Maternity department is greeted with a familiar welcome message. Across the campus, patients arriving for treatment see similar department-specific greetings that help them feel confident they’ve reached the correct destination.
Most of the time, the system sits quietly in the background, supporting the daily flow of hospital life.
But when an alarm occurs, dynamicZM immediately adapts.
One afternoon, an alarm activation occurs in the Therapy Block.
At the entrance to Maternity, the dynamicZM display automatically switches from its welcome message to a clear site-wide map of the hospital campus. The affected block is highlighted, allowing staff and visitors to quickly understand that an incident is taking place elsewhere on the site.
Dr. Patel glances at the display and immediately understands the situation.
The incident is visible, but because it is not local to his building, he isn’t overwhelmed with unnecessary technical detail.
Later that month, another alarm activation occurs, this time within the Maternity Block itself.
Now the dynamicZM display changes its response.
Instead of showing a campus-wide overview, it automatically presents a detailed zone plan of the Maternity Block. The affected area is highlighted clearly, and the associated device location information is displayed on screen.
For staff inside the building, the information is instantly relevant and immediately actionable.
Sarah’s team can quickly identify where attention is required, while responding personnel gain valuable situational awareness before they even enter the department.
How the experience changes
- For Sarah – The hospital gains a smarter way to communicate incident information across a complex multi-building estate.
- For Dr. Patel – Staff receive information that is relevant to their location without being distracted by unnecessary detail
- For clinical teams – Local incidents can be identified more quickly through detailed block-specific zone plans
- For first responders – Visual information provides immediate awareness of both local and site-wide incidents
- For visitors and patients – Welcome messages create a clearer, more reassuring arrival experience
- For the hospital – One solution supports both daily wayfinding and emergency communication across the entire campus
The outcome
dynamicZM can provide a solution to visualise alarm locations across a large hospital estate and improve both everyday operations and emergency awareness.
It aims to ensure that every building receives the information needed. Staff could quickly determine whether an incident was local or elsewhere on the campus, responders could identify affected areas faster, and visitors were welcomed with clear, department-specific messaging.
The result was a system that intelligently switched between campus-wide awareness and detailed local information – helping one of the hospital’s most complex challenges feel simple, intuitive, and easy to understand.
*This is a fictional example of how dynamicZM can fit into your hospital or health care environment.