Why Hospitals and Healthcare Trust Locatrix

The Townsville Hospital and Health Service (THHS) is one of the most geographically dispersed healthcare catchments and serves more than 250,000 people across northern Queensland.

The catchment extends north from Townsville to Cardwell, west to Richmond, south to Home Hill, and east to Magnetic and Palm Islands. THHS provides a comprehensive range of healthcare services, from primary care in remote locations to highly specialized services at Townsville University Hospital (TUH). TUH functions as the tertiary referral hospital for all of north Queensland and plays a crucial role in providing specialist care to more than 700,000 people across a broader catchment—extending from Mackay in the south, north to the Torres Strait Islands, and west to the Northern Territory border.

Constant change is inevitable in a healthcare facility. Whether driven by funding opportunities—such as additional beds, new programs, building upgrades, and renovations—or the demands of a growing population, scalable and innovative solutions must be implemented to maximize efficiency while ensuring compliance and safety are maintained.

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One of the greatest challenges hospitals face is keeping staff, volunteers, students and consumers informed of operational changes as they occur, ensuring confidence in emergency response procedures.

At THHS, this critical responsibility falls to a sole Fire Safety Coordinator.

"Fires are always going to happen, and it’s critical to issue accurate training to prepare all occupants for managing emergencies—especially in a busy hospital like Townsville, where staff care for vulnerable people."

THHS operates across 21 facilities spanning a vast region of Queensland. Before implementing PlanSafe, training in First Response,General Occupancy, and ECO (Emergency Control Organisation) was delivered through face-to-face sessions and various online platforms. This was not an efficient way to train its roster-based workforce, particularly when travel to some facilities could take up to six hours. Training had to be conducted twice a year or whenever an operational change occurred—creating a significant challenge that demanded an innovative and dependable solution.

"A health service as large as ours requires managing over 130 fire drills annually. PlanSafe has enabled us to prioritize fire drills and audits based on available resources, ensuring tailored training is delivered remotely to suit each facility’s fire evacuation plan. PlanSafe works well out of the box, but collaborating with Locatrix’s Client Delivery team has allowed us to customize the portal for each site's unique requirements, enhancing compliance reporting."

"With more than 100 buildings across 29 sites, each with unique fire-engineered solutions, we need confidence that our systems reflect all building details—something made possible through PlanStudio."

Fire Safety Advisors are trained on Locatrix’s input drafting tool, PlanStudio, which allows them to make live building plan changes on-site through mobile accessibility.

"PlanStudio enables us to implement immediate site changes and updates to PlanSafe content. Adding PlanStudio to our PlanSafe subscription has given us the ability to handle in-house plan amendments, ensuring consistency and control."

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With Fire Safety Advisors having control over plan updates, any modifications to evacuation paths or essential fire safety measures can be implemented immediately. This impacts not only the building plans but also the training required for occupants—such as a new extinguisher or evacuation method—which is automatically updated in PlanSafe’s online training for relevant personnel.

With complete control over maintaining and updating floor plans, the Townsville team has also supported other departments in space planning.

"We’ve used PlanStudio to create diagrams for operational requirements, including staff accommodation procedures and equipment planning. Recently, we even mapped staff amenities such as kitchenettes, showers, coffee machines, and vending machines!"

"PlanSafe and PlanStudio are exceptional applications that have filled a critical gap in our health service regarding fire safety compliance and reporting. The ability to amend evacuation diagrams and training as our Health Service evolves gives us greater oversight and control in maintaining compliance."

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