The Report to the President on the U.S. Preparations for the 2009 H1N1 Influenza states:
"Communications will be one of the most formidable challenges in managing the anticipated resurgence of the 2009 H1N1 this fall, due to the rapidly evolving nature of the outbreak, the number and complexity of the messages and the myriad of channels through which the public will be receiving information."
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Overview and Benefits
Healthcare facilities face a variety of threats posed by man-made sources or natural causes. These may include:
- Biological or chemical contamination
- Communication of epidemic or pandemic information (i.e. Swine Flu/H1N1)
- Maternity room child abduction
- Facility safety event such as fire or flooding
To address these events, and many others, healthcare facilities are now relying on mass notification systems that are able to reach thousands of people quickly, capture responses, and automatically generate personnel status reports in minutes.
This capability is also crucial for operational uses, such as:
- Staff recall with a large influx of patients
- Shift change notifications and availability tracking
- Early warning and availability
AtHoc’s solutions provide hospitals and clinics with the capability to reach staff via PCs, personal digital assistants (PDAs), land and cell phones, pagers, Blackberries, social media (Twitter, Facebook), and public address systems in real time. AtHoc’s unified alert management console allows authorized managers to trigger and control alerts through a single Web-based console.
Healthcare organizations can rely on AtHoc mass notification for:
- Staff Protection – Mass dissemination of alerts to personnel to accelerate threat response
- Personnel Accountability – Receive feedback on alerts to know status of recipient during a crisis
- Accurate and Secure Contact Information – Deployed behind the firewall and integrated with existing data sources to ensure personnel contact information is accurate and secure
- Regulatory Compliance – Meeting federal and state regulations and requirements such as section 508, HEA and the Cleary Act
The AtHoc IWSAlerts solution:
- Transforms your existing IP network into a comprehensive, enterprise-class mass notification system for rapid communication, boundless reach and cost effectiveness
- Unifies all communication channels and devices, including networked computers, land/mobile phones, sirens, display boards, social media (Twitter, Facebook), radios and others, into a single system to simplify activation, ensure message consistency and reduce alerting time
- Manages the communication plan across an organization during emergencies by providing pre-defined scenarios, operator access policies, multi-location support, alert activation flow, tracking and reporting
- Connect to external sources of alerts, such as the Centers of Disease Control, to automate the dissemination of local or national CDC information as in, for example, the recent Swine Flu updates
- Monitors video feeds, physical sensors and external data sources to automatically trigger notification scenarios
- Ensures continuous accuracy of personnel contact information by integrating with enterprise directories, providing operator user management tools and supporting end user self-service
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