Dallas VA Medical Center
The Dallas VA Medical Center covers 84 acres just south of downtown Dallas and serves as the referral center for the VA North Texas Health Care System. According to Johnny Stacy, Sales Manager with local fire and security integrator SSD Systems, the Dallas VA Medical Center, which employs more than 4,500 people and is the second-largest VA in the nation in terms of workload, plans to expand in the next few years.
"The history and reliability of NOTIFIER and its distributor network were the big selling points on the project. And of course the flexibility of the Digital Voice Command system for mass notification." said Stacy.

SSD Systems installed fiber-optic cable across the campus, connecting 13 Notifier NFS2-3030 panels with high-speed network cards. These panels will protect 40 buildings containing over 2 million squarefeet of space. DVC stations will be installed in all panels to facilitate fire and emergency messaging. Three ONYXWorks workstations will provide the master control and monitoring functionality the facility requires.

Like the other VA hospitals, Dallas officials wanted to be able to pick-up a microphone at one of the workstations and talk to any building. The NOTIFIER systems allow building-specific and entire campus announcements. The NFS2-3030 panels installed by SSD are set-up for individualized messages and as needed, customizable emergency events.

"If there is a tornado, for instance, the system can announce a different message than a fire emergency and amber colored ‘Alert’ strobes would be used for that event," said Stacy.

Stacy said the fact that he's working on a project that will keep veterans safe was not lost on him. His father, a World War II vet, was in the transitional care facility at the Dallas VA Medical Center for some time.

"To get them a dependable system that works...I'm very humbled by it," said Stacy.