Stanford employs an integrated systems approach to emergency management and mission continuity, which enables the University to identify opportunities to mitigate risk and prevent loss as well as respond to crises and disasters. This approach aims to establish business continuity and recovery strategies for all emergency events, crises, or disasters, regardless of size or complexity.
An integrated and coordinated emergency management program provides the Stanford community with a number of benefits, including:
- Reduced vulnerability and exposure to future crises and disasters.
- Protection of life, property, the environment, essential services, and critical facilities.
- Minimized post-disaster economic hardship for the campus and community.
- Lowered short-term and long-term recovery and reconstruction costs.
- Quicker resumption of University functions, including education, research, and business systems.
- Increased cooperation and communication within the community through planning, training, and carrying out the program.
CardinalShield is a robust emergency management, IT disaster recovery, and mission continuity planning platform specifically tailored for use at Stanford University. The system facilitates planning by units to more effectively respond to emergencies and minimize disruptions to teaching and research.
This is achieved by developing coping strategies and putting mitigation measures in place before a disruptive event occurs. CardinalShield represents Stanford’s vision and commitment to build and maintain the capacity, capability and digital tools needed to plan for and respond to emergencies.
CardinalShield IM enhances university emergency management by providing improved incident visibility and rapid information sharing. With incident reporting and digital mapping, emergency managers can better understand initial impacts and anticipate the needs of students, faculty, and staff. Continuous updates enable accurate and timely communication and efficient resource deployment, allowing university leaders to make informed decisions and prioritize responses based on a unified view of the situation.
CardinalShield Incident Management (IM) provides a common operating picture across university schools, departments, and business units during incident response by enabling:
- Incident Management: Enhances university response with a centralized incident reporting system that automatically triggers notifications and response workflows to ensure all necessary personnel are promptly informed.
- Incident Decision-Making: Empowers university leaders and emergency managers with access maps and incident data, enabling informed decision-making and effective prioritization of response priorities.
- Task Assignment and Tracking: Facilitates task assignment, monitoring, and collaboration across departments, enabling each team member to track outstanding tasks and ensure the appropriate execution of all parts of the response plan.
- Communication and Collaboration: Supports multi-channel communication—via emails, messages, or calls—ensuring that everyone involved in the emergency response has access to information in real-time, regardless of location.
- Document Management: Allows for the staging of important documents within the system for quick and easy access during a response, while also automatically logging every action to ensure accountability and facilitate After Action Reporting.
- Resource Coordination: Streamlines resource requests and allocations, ensuring required materials, personnel, and equipment are identified and deployed for effective incident response.
