AtHoc IWSAlerts third-generation mass emergency alerting system to be deployed

Nov 16 2009

AtHoc, Inc., the pioneer and leader in network-centric emergency notification systems, today announced the Lyster Army Health Clinic will deploy the AtHoc IWSAlerts™ third-generation mass emergency alerting system to help protect staff and patients. Lyster Army Health Clinic is located at Fort Rucker in Alabama. The clinic provides primary care and ancillary services to a military population that consists of active duty service members, their families, a large retiree population and their family members.

Lyster will rely on AtHoc IWSAlerts to notify personnel about threats faced by most domestic military installations -- threats posed by weather or man-made sources. However, as a medical organization, Lyster will leverage network technology for the rapid delivery of alerts for clinic-related operational communications. These can range from biological or chemical contaminations; communication of epidemic or pandemic information; or a staff recall with a large influx of patients due to a mass casualty incident. In addition to outward bound notifications, Lyster will be able to connect to external sources of alerts, such as the Centers for Disease Control, to automate the dissemination of local or national CDC information such as recent Swine Flu (H1N1) updates.

Maintaining the privacy of personnel information is a requirement of all health care organizations. Using AtHoc IWSAlerts, Lyster clinic personal information will be deployed behind the firewall and kept highly secure.

The deployment of AtHoc's IWSAlerts at Lyster represents another step in the Department of Defense medical community's adaption of third-generation mass notification technology. Third-generation systems leverage existing IP networks to (a) communicate rapidly to all IP connected devices; (b) integrate and unify disparate existing mass notification capabilities; (c) provide bi-directional communication allowing collection of feedback from all personnel; and (d) achieve enterprise-level scalability and processes. The result is the most effective enterprise-wide mass notification capability with the best cost to benefit ratio.

"We look forward to deploying our award-winning mass alerting solution at the Lyster Army Health Clinic. Along with Irwin Army Hospital at Fort Riley, the deployment of AtHoc's IWSAlerts at Lyster Army Health Clinic demonstrates the ability of our network-based mass notification system to meet the unique requirements of large DoD health care organizations," said Andy Anderson, Vice President of Defense Operations for AtHoc. "AtHoc continues to be adopted by more and more DoD medical community organizations, including the Navy's BUMED and Army and Air Force clinics and hospitals."