MetricStream Increasingly Selected by Universities Pursuing Safety

A safe university draws interested students, so putting extra focus behind safety is something many universities are turning to. It isn't always easy to bolster safety on campus, but for some universities, adding MetricStream's cloud-based Safety Inspection Management Solution is proving a bigger help than expected.

With MetricStream's Safety Inspection Management Solution, users get access to a more complete and integrated system designed to automate and track inspection findings. When inspection findings generate issues, universities—and other users—can better act on these findings and generate resolution for the issues in question. This helps ensure that outstanding safety issues don't ultimately become problems that may result in injury and worse for campuses, and allows universities to better ensure compliance with regulations and policies accordingly.

With proper safety management, small issues can be addressed while still small, when mitigation methods required to address said issues are often easiest and least expensive. That makes for a better overall student experience, and gives schools some leverage in terms of marketing. Since the program automates the tasks, it reduces manual processes, which can be inefficient. That also limits some spending on the task, and it also improves collaboration and visibility.

MetricStream works with a variety of firms in a host of industries; its products have been seen in financial services, healthcare, and even the food industry, and the company claims several major names as clients including Philips (News - Alert), Kellogg's, and SanDisk. Most recently, the company added a major university to the lineup, one that selected MetricStream following evaluations with several different providers.

The phrase “crumbling death trap” generally doesn't draw a lot of interest from concerned parents and students, especially when that phrase can be used to effectively describe a school's campus. While this may not be the first definition of “student safety” that comes to mind when talking about a college experience—usually most will think in terms of campus police and well-lit spaces—building inspections are certainly important. The college I attended had several older buildings, still frequently in use, and no one wants to get hit by a chunk of falling plaster or the like. Having the inspection and monitoring systems more automated should help improve this situation by better tracking what's going on and addressing problems early on. Many colleges use older buildings to accommodate extra students, and fixing these as extensively as needs be can be difficult. Fixing problems while still small can be much more manageable on a budget, and help keep costs down, a point that's been well-publicized of late thanks to ongoing student loan issues.

Protecting student safety—whether it's related to crime on campus or crumbling buildings—is vital to assuring returning students and new incoming students. Tools like MetricStream's could be just the thing to better ensure that the campus itself is immediately safer.