Contact Information: Contact: Ivy Eckerman Spire Communications (540) 373-2963 Email Contact
Wilford Hall Medical Center Deploys AtHoc IWSAlerts to Provide Medical Facility With Network-Centric Emergency Notification System
AtHoc to Provide Medical Center With the Ability to Quickly Alert Personnel Regarding Emergency Situations and Provide Instructions for Action
| Source: AtHoc
BURLINGAME, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- March 27, 2007 -- AtHoc, Inc. today announced Wilford Hall
Medical Center has deployed AtHoc IWSAlerts to quickly reach personnel
regarding emergency situations. As a military medical facility, Wilford
Hall will use the network-centric alerting system in many ways that are
similar to AtHoc's other Air Force base customers, but they also have
unique requirements created by the nature of the medical work performed at
the facility.
Wilford Hall Medical Center, the Air Force's largest medical facility, is a
national resource, providing complete medical care to military healthcare
beneficiaries in the south central United States as well as specialized
care to patients referred from all over the world.
Wilford Hall is using AtHoc IWSAlerts to alert personnel to the types of
situations most domestic military installations would expect -- e.g.,
threats posed by weather or man-made sources. Yet unlike most military
facilities using the system, people in a hospital environment cannot be
easily mobilized in response to the threat. Early warning is critical for
Wilford Hall to be able to respond to emergency situations effectively.
In addition to mobility challenges, Wilford Hall faces a different set of
emergency scenarios -- scenarios uncommon for an Air Force base but very
common for hospitals. These emergencies can range from biological or
chemical contamination to a large influx of patients coming into the
hospital due to an accident. Regardless of the situation, the medical
personnel working at Wilford Hall need quick access to accurate
information.
The Medical Control Center at Wilford Hall fills the critical role of
keeping in touch with Lackland's base command center to track emergency
situations. The Medical Control Center serves as the eyes and ears for the
medical community, and if an emergency situation arises, the group is
responsible for alerting Wilford Hall personnel. When an emergency
situation arises, the Medical Control Center uses AtHoc IWSAlerts to alert
the more than 5,000 computers distributed across the five-building medical
facility.
"Wilford Hall fulfills an incredibly important mission for the Air Force.
Effectively protecting the medical center, its personnel and patients
depends heavily on situational awareness," said Guy Miasnik, president and
CEO of AtHoc. "Regardless of the type of emergency scenario -- whether
military or medical -- Wilford Hall can provide alerts to its staff with
specific instructions for action based upon the scenario and the
recipient's role within the organization. This level of granularity in the
alerting process can help Wilford Hall contain and combat emergency
situations."
AtHoc IWSAlerts combines a network alerting capability with a robust
emergency notification management system. Using its network alerting
capability, the system enables military installations to reach all
personnel using a network-connected device, such as desktop PCs or PDAs.
The alerts reach personnel in times of emergency with targeted messages and
instructions for action -- all within an average of one minute.
To manage the alerts and the alerting process, AtHoc IWSAlerts' management
system serves as the control center which provides centralized management
of all aspects of the emergency notification process. This includes:
emergency scenario management, operators' permission management, end-user
management and alerts tracking.
AtHoc worked with the Wilford Hall team to help tailor custom alerts for
the hospital. Now the Medical Control Center team can create alerts for any
type of scenario and determine which personnel should be alerted with
instructions for action. The team continues to actively build its library
of emergency scenarios for situations ranging from water contamination to
pending weather conditions.
In addition to providing the ability for Wilford Hall to alert personnel
with information regarding emergencies identified by the base command
center, AtHoc IWSAlerts can be configured to pull feeds from numerous data
sources, including the Center for Disease Control and the National Weather
Service. Wilford Hall can elect to use these feeds to enhance its emergency
notification capabilities further in the future.
About AtHoc, Inc.
AtHoc provides enterprise-class, network-centric alerting systems for
emergency notifications, force protection readiness, anti-terror warnings
and critical communications. AtHoc offers a broad set of alerting solutions
for defense and civilian agencies and commercial enterprises, including
IWSAlerts™ for network-centric emergency notifications; C2Alerts™ for
targeted user alerts in command and control operations centers;
KMAlerts™ for knowledge and intelligence dissemination; and
EmployeeAlerts™ for corporate emergency communications. AtHoc has
partnered with Microsoft, Northrop Grumman, Unisys and IBM to bring these
notification solutions to the enterprise market. The U.S. Strategic
Command, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Boeing, eBay
and Juniper Networks are some of the world-class organizations that have
selected and deployed AtHoc for their critical enterprise notification
needs.
For more information on AtHoc, please visit http://www.athoc.com.