A duress button for clinic reception, get help without making the waiting room worse.
A silent trigger on every screen, answered by the colleagues nearby. No server hardware, it runs on a PC you already leave on. Works even when the internet is down. From A$299/year.
No credit card required for the trial. No additional hardware needed. No IT needed, as long as you have appropriate rights.
Eight patients are watching. The man at the desk is getting louder about a bill. Your receptionist can’t pick up a phone, can’t walk away, and can’t press anything anyone can see. One keystroke, and to the room, she’s still just typing.
What the front desk actually deals with
Often one person, often alone
Opening up, covering lunch, closing after the last patient. The front desk is regularly a single person with a waiting room in front of them and closed doors behind.
The counter is not a barrier
A raised counter slows somebody down. It does not stop them, and it leaves the receptionist seated, facing a screen, within reach.
The phone is already occupied
Reception is usually mid-call, mid-booking or mid-payment. Any response that needs a free hand and a spare moment is the wrong response.
Where the front desk usually puts it
- Every reception machine, not just the one the senior receptionist uses.
- A keyboard shortcut on each of them, so it works while both hands are busy.
- A USB button where the receptionist is often standing, or where reaching across the desk would be obvious.
- Every machine that could respond, which is the part people forget. A trigger with nobody to receive it is not much use.
Front desk cover works best when the responders are decided as deliberately as the triggers: who is expected to come, and who covers them when they are the one on the desk.
Three colours. Everyone understands them in one demo.
Green means ready
A small dot sits quietly in the corner of every screen. Staff know at a glance the system is live.
Red means help now
One click, hotkey or desk button, and a pop-up appears over whatever colleagues are working on, showing exactly where help is needed. No sound in the room. Nothing the visitor can see.
Orange means responding
The first colleague to respond is recorded, and the person who raised the alert sees their button turn orange. They know help is on the way before it arrives.
- Help is acknowledged. The moment a colleague responds, the person who raised the alert sees their button turn orange, they know help is coming before it arrives.
- No server hardware. Duress Alert runs on a Windows PC you already leave on, and alerts travel over your own network, so they keep working even when the internet is down.
- Easy to roll out. You install it yourself in about five minutes per computer, with the silent-install packages and a rollout guide included. Already a Duress Alert customer upgrading? We help you do it over a secure screen share.
Prefer something you can press without looking?
Add a physical button where it helps (under the reception counter), from A$25 plus delivery. Unlike a hardwired button, Duress Alert warns you on screen the moment a button is unplugged, and confirms when it’s back, so you never discover a dead button during an emergency. And if a button ever fails, staff can still raise the alert from the screen, tray icon or hotkey.
A control you can evidence.
WHS regulators treat front-of-house aggression in clinics as a foreseeable risk. A drilled, silent duress process is the control they expect to find. Duress Alert’s dated raise, respond, reset history is evidence you can table, not a policy on a shelf.
“Our head receptionist managed the front desk alone and had to shout across the clinic for help when a patient became abusive. Since installing Duress Alert she feels a lot safer.”
Sanjay Gultibe, Sydney NSW
Duress Alert was built inside Australian general practice. IT4GP has supported GP clinics for more than 15 years, the duress button came from watching what actually happens at reception, not from a security catalogue.
Simple annual pricing
Team Safe
Group Safe
Corporate Safe
Multi Site Safe
Prices exclude GST. Local taxes are added where they apply.
Install and options
- One-off install A$99, includes training and 12 months of support.
- Optional physical desk button, from A$25 plus delivery. It warns you on screen the moment it is unplugged, so you never find a dead button in an emergency.
Start your free 21-day trial, covering up to 25 computers. Configure it and roll it out across your site, at no cost. The trial itself is free. If you go ahead afterwards, we can set it up with you for a one-off A$99. When you move from the trial to a full licence there is no extra effort, everything you have set up simply keeps running. No payment details to start, and you can cancel anytime.
Prices in AUD. In the UK, USA, Canada or Europe? See local pricing: UK, USA, Canada, Europe.
For your IT provider
Your IT person (or ours) can push Duress Alert to every computer automatically, silent-install MSIs generated by the server with your configuration baked in, central management of every setting, and support for shared/remote desktops (RDS) and Mac. Client-to-server traffic stays on your local network (default TCP 8001); only the server talks to the cloud, over HTTPS, for licensing and reporting. Have an IT team, multiple sites, or shared/remote desktops? See our IT deployment page, silent installs, central configuration and rollout at any scale.
Common questions.
The alert reaches every other machine on site, including clinicians and managers behind closed doors who would otherwise hear nothing. If nobody else is on site at all, this is a system for summoning colleagues, not an emergency service, and it is worth being clear about that when you plan cover.
Yes. A keyboard shortcut, or a click on the small on-screen button. There is no sound by default and nothing obvious from the visitor’s side of the desk.
Those are the shifts most worth covering. The system runs whenever the computer is on, and the acknowledgement tells the person who raised the alert that a colleague has seen it.
Not necessarily. Many front desks use the keyboard shortcut. A USB button helps where the receptionist is often standing, or where reaching across to the keyboard would be obvious.
Yes. The RACGP Standards for general practices (5th edition) expect practices to manage risks to staff safety under Criterion C3.5. A duress alarm on every workstation is a practical, demonstrable control for occupational-violence risk.
No. Duress Alert runs on the Windows and Mac computers you already have. An optional physical desk button can be added from A$25 where a tactile trigger helps.
Annual licensing starts from A$299 for up to 10 users, with Group, Corporate and Multi Site plans above that, plus a one-off A$99 install. Every plan includes a free 21-day trial.
The trial licence expires and alerting stops until a licence is applied. Nothing is charged automatically, and we hold no payment details from the trial.
Buy the licence in the Duress Alert cloud portal. If your server is cloud connected, which is the default, the licence updates itself at the server’s next check-in, and it checks in daily. For an offline installation, our team coordinates with you to apply the licence.
Whichever you prefer. You can run the silent installer yourself in about five minutes per computer, your own IT provider can do it, or we can do it with you as a one-off install service that includes training and 12 months of support.
Tell us about your site.
Tell us your team size and setting, and we’ll show you how Duress Alert works on your own desks and what a rollout looks like. We get back to you quickly.
Silent help for the busiest desk in the building.
Questions? +61 1300 366 911 (Australia).
