Hawaiʻi Fire Department Leads State Emergency Care Improvement Efforts with Pulsara Communication Platform

Hawaiʻi Fire Department Leads State Emergency Care Improvement Efforts with Pulsara Communication Platform

From mass casualty response to stroke care, HFD advances real-time coordination and accountability for Hawaiʻi Island

From mass casualty response to stroke care, HFD advances real-time coordination and accountability for Hawaiʻi Island.

BOZEMAN, MT, UNITED STATES, March 24, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Pulsara, the leading communication and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams across organizations, announced the successful real-world deployment of Pulsara for mass gatherings by Hawaiʻi Fire Department (HFD), introducing a powerful advancement in patient care coordination in Hawaiʻi. Following measurable reductions in treatment times for stroke patients with Pulsara, HFD expanded its use to high-volume drills and the IRONMAN World Championship triathlon. By leveraging Pulsara’s real-time communication across care teams, HFD strengthens its response and treatment capabilities, improving coordination with incident partners and receiving emergency departments during high-volume or high-acuity events.

The State of Hawaiʻi Department of Health is providing Pulsara at no cost to all healthcare organizations in the state, creating Hawaiʻi's first unified statewide emergency response system. For Garrett Hall, MS, BSN, RN, State of Hawaii DOH Chief of Emergency Medical Services and Injury Prevention Systems, this large-scale initiative is a promising step toward improving care for rural and urban communities across the state. “Pulsara is transforming emergency care across Hawaiʻi by unifying EMS and acute care hospitals through seamless communication. Smarter connections lead to faster decisions—and faster decisions save lives.”

For HFD, the decision to implement Pulsara reflected a broader commitment to strengthening care delivery for the community it serves. With Hawai’i County already beating national averages for community CPR and AED use education, HFD has consistently prioritized awareness and proactive improvement. “I truly believe in using Pulsara because we've seen improvements and we know that using this technology system works," said EMS Captain Michael Lam of the Hawaiʻi Fire Department. "This helps our community, and how can we not support a program that helps the community?”

Hawaiʻi Fire Department initially adopted Pulsara for stroke response. In addition to leveraging early hospital care team alerting, HFD used Pulsara’s live video conferencing functionality, connecting pre-hospital responders with neurology specialists on neighboring islands to support vital real-time stroke patient care. This is a critical capability in a rural environment where definitive care can be hours away. Partner hospitals such as Hilo Benioff Medical Center reported significant reductions in stroke treatment times, improving patient outcomes across the island. Captain Lam noted that “Using Pulsara drastically reduces door-to-needle times. We’ve seen successes in our community where we’ve had severe stroke patients making pretty much full recoveries because they had early access to a neurospecialist.”

“Adopting new technology can also take an initial adjustment,” added Hawai’i Fire Department’s EMS Captain, Aaron Mitchell. “But once our guys started utilizing it and seeing how it was actually benefiting our stroke patients, they’re all happy to do it.”

In late 2025, HFD expanded their Pulsara use case to assist in MCI response, implementing the platform just six weeks before the Hilo International Airport Triennial Exercise, a massive, multi-agency drill led by Hilo’s Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting station. With minimal training, responders from participating agencies used barcode wristbands to instantly create comprehensive, patient-specific communication channels within Pulsara. The simple “band and scan” process replaced pen-and-paper solutions, allowing HFD and other response agencies to rapidly triage and track over 80 patients throughout the scenario. “It's just muscle memory,” noted Captain Mitchell. “As the incident progressed, and we kept the repetition going, it became really fast and efficient.”

One month later, HFD got the opportunity to leverage Pulsara for a live high-volume event, the IRONMAN World Championship triathlon. With thousands of participating athletes and attendants cheering them on, HFD had the unique challenge of managing patients across miles of race course. Using bib ID numbers, HFD instantly associated injured athletes with a Pulsara patient channel. For one family searching for answers after their loved one did not reach the finish line, this functionality provided much needed peace of mind. Through Pulsara, HFD crews were able to quickly determine where the participant was being treated, allowing for fast, seamless reunification.

Captain Lam shared that managing reunification situations like this would have normally taken a lot of time and resources involving multiple phone calls and care teams. “But with Pulsara, we grabbed our phone, punched some information in, and we knew exactly where the athlete was. We were able to determine which ambulance the patient went into and where the patient was transported. That extra level of information is a world of difference.”

Building on its success in stroke care and mass casualty response, Hawaiʻi Fire Department plans to continue expanding Pulsara utilization. By strengthening real-time collaboration between field crews, hospitals, and specialists on neighboring islands, HFD remains steadfast in its commitment to prioritizing the well-being of the Hawaiʻi Island community through faster, more coordinated care.

“It’s for the community,” said Captain Lam. “When you drop off a patient, there's this uncertainty of what's going to happen. With Pulsara, we communicate with the hospital, we communicate with a neurologist on Oahu, and we know that for this person—who may be your music teacher, the mother of your judo student, or friend of a friend—the chances of them getting better is going to increase. It’s all worth it.”

As a state-funded initiative, Hawaiʻi Department of Health encourages all fire, EMS, emergency management, and hospital organizations to finalize their no-cost Pulsara implementation.

Hawai’i organizations can GET STARTED HERE, or learn more about Pulsara at www.pulsara.com.

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About Hawaiʻi Fire Department

The Hawaiʻi Fire Department is primarily responsible for fire protection and suppression, pre-hospital emergency medical services, land and sea search and rescue, hazardous materials response, ocean safety, fire prevention, and public education for the County of Hawaiʻi.

About Pulsara

Pulsara is the communication and logistics platform that connects healthcare and emergency response teams on a single secure network. From routine emergencies to large-scale incidents, Pulsara enables care teams within and across organizations to improve treatment times, assist in evacuation and reunification efforts, and coordinate care for better patient outcomes. Learn more at www.pulsara.com.

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