U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: VA Personnel Accountability System

Industry Government

www.va.gov/

VA Nationwide Presence

• 700,000 VA personnel• 171 Medical Centers• 800 Outpatient, Community and-

Outreach Clinics• 126 Nursing Home Care Units• 35 Domiciliary Care Residences

Case Study

Case Study

The VA Implements AtHoc to Initially Protect 400,000 VA Personnel: Enterprise-wide deployment will scale to cover 700,000 over a five-year period

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a government-run military veteran benefit system with cabinet-level

status and the largest healthcare provider in the United States. The VA is committed to the medical treatment of

veterans and their families, providing a broad spectrum of health services, surgical services and rehabilitative care.

With 171 medical centers, more than 800 outpatient, community and outreach clinics, 126 nursing home care units,

35 domiciliaries and local offices, it is an extraordinarily large, dispersed organization with hundreds of thousands of

personnel across the United States.

The VA has deployed AtHoc’s enterprise-class networked emergency mass notification system: VA Personnel

Accountability System, known as VA-PAS. Fully integrated with the U.S. Navy’s Personnel Accountability and

Assessment System (PAAS), the VA-PAS solution meets unique emergency alerting, critical communications, and

personnel accountability needs such as:

• Unified emergency alerting – Integrated with existing notification protocols, the AtHoc solution provides

consistent, redundant emergency mass alerts to medical teams and first responders to accelerate incident

response

• Rapid, secure, and pervasive alerting – Distributed in real-time via all IP-enabled channels and devices:

mobile and smartphones, computers as intrusive desktop popups, email, fax, BlackBerry devices and SMS

text messages

• Potential latitude for extended platform capabilities – Integration with digital displays, indoor/outdoor

public address (PA) systems and other security systems, such as video surveillance, fire panels, IP Phones

(VoIP), and one-click emergency alerts

• Continuity of operations and patient care – Following any emergency, maintain communications while

incidents are resolved

• Personnel accountability – Bi-directional mass alert solution provides proactive assessment of personal

status and safety of medical staff and ability to perform patient care

• Response tracking and reporting – Alert recipients have multiple response options (as customized by

emergency managers) for acknowledgement, vital for situational awareness

• Personnel recall – Rapid recall of off-site medical personnel in the event of an emergency

• Operational notification – Available for shift/schedule changes, drug recall notification and critical system

outages

• Predefined scenarios tailored to the VA environment – Lends high level of efficiency and ease of

management of emergency notification response flow across the enterprise

• Connection to external alert sources – Real-time connectivity and alerting

• Regulatory compliance – Healthcare, government, and state regulations and guidelines, including National

Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 51

Case Study

U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs at a Glance

• 700,000 VA personnel

• 171 Medical Centers

• 800 Clinics

• 126 Nursing Home Care Units

• 35 Domiciliary Care Residences

Requirements• Enterprise-wide unified notification management

solution

• Integration with U.S. Navy Personnel

• Accountability and Assessment System (PAAS)

• Scalable to meet future mass notification system

(MNS) requirements

• On-site deployment enabling secure

• Protected Personal Information (PII)

• Capable of targeting specific location, group or

individual

• Continuity of operations and patient care in an

emergency

• Personnel accountability, situational awareness

capabilities

• Multiple, redundant notification channels and

devices

• Compliant with standard regulations, military and

federally mandated certifications

Solution: AtHoc Enterprise Edition• Integrates with U.S. Navy Personnel Accountability

and Assessment

• System (PAAS), yielding the VA Personnel

Accountability System (VA-PAS)

• Multi-tenancy capabilities target messages to

specific locations, groups, or individuals

• Pervasive alerting via all IP-enabled channels and

devices

• Secure private cloud deployment behind the firewall

delivers assurance of data protection

• Personnel accountability, tracking, reporting, and

situational awareness capabilities

• Protocol redundancy with reliable failover system

• Emergency scenarios are tailored to the healthcare

venue

• Meets all federal, state, and healthcare regulations

and requirements

Results• National adoption of VA-PAS personnel

accountability and notification solution

• Integration with Navy PAAS adds operational value

and substantial cost savings

• Rapid, pervasive mass notification in real-time via

multiple channels and devices

• Implementation protects hundreds of thousands of

VA personnel and patients

• Capabilities support VA’s mass notification and

accountability requirements

• Scalable solution meets current capacity and

supports future growth

• Failover capabilities deliver reliability and assured

continuity of operations, patient care, and patient

record access

• Full compliance with federal government, state and

healthcare regulations

• Successful participation in federally mandated

National Level Exercise (NLE)

Executive Summary

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, an enterprise

entity responsible for administering numerous programs

for veterans and their families, is also dedicated to

upholding medical care with a vast number of medical

facilities spanning the entire United States.

To advance their emergency notification standards, the

VA sought to integrate the established and proven U.S.

Navy Personnel and Accountability Assessment System

(PAAS) with an enterprise-class solution to deliver rapid,

secure, and pervasive alerts. The system would initially

protect more than 400,000 VA personnel in widely

dispersed areas across the country. Additionally, the

combined solution must be cost-effective with the ability

to scale to accommodate growth, leverage existing

notification protocols while fully complying with all health,

federal, and state regulations and requirements.

To adapt to such extensively distributed geo-locations,

the VA also required an enterprise-wide, centralized

architecture.Important to include were bi-directional

capabilities, enabling a high level of personnel accountability

and situational awareness for emergency managers.

All alert message content, private personnel and patient

information must be secured behind the firewall and

protected on an internal network. Given the serious nature

of the healthcare setting, a highly dependable, transparent

failover system must also be implemented for continuity of

operations, patient care, and patient record access.

Following rigorous selection assessment for the adoption of

a unified, secure, networked emergency mass notification

technology solution, integration with Navy PAAS system

and implementation, the VA turned to AtHoc.

Cost Savings

The U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs realized substantial cost savings by moving to an enterprise edition of AtHoc. This

consolidation removed redundant components within separate tenant units, unified management of mass alerts and

saved budget on software licenses and maintenance costs when integrating with the Navy’s PAAS. The result is the most

effective enterprise-wide mass notification capability with the best cost-to-benefit ratio.

The Challenge

Case Study

AtHoc’s innovative technology is protecting VA personnel

through the implementation of its unified emergency

mass notification system, powered by AtHoc. Deployed

in a secure private cloud, the enterprise-class solution has

been integrated with PAAS, the U.S. Navy’s established

personnel accountability system. The interoperability of

AtHoc has yielded the VA Personnel Accountability System

(VA-PAS): one ubiquitous system for all of VA.

VA-PAS is a robust IP-based emergency mass

communications and accountability solution for nationwide

support from a centralized location. VA-PAS enables rapid

alerts to computers as desktop popups, VA phones, mobile

and smartphones, e-mail, fax, BlackBerry devices, and

SMS texts.

AtHoc’s enterprise-class architecture with multi-tenancy

capabilities can isolate messages to specific locations,

groups, or individuals based on unique criteria. Targeted

alerts can be sent to police, fire, emergency management

services, or crisis management teams. Deployment will

initially protect 400,000 personnel and scale incrementally

over a 5-year period to cover over 700,000 employees for

end-to-end personnel accountability.

This solution fulfills VA’s mission for emergency notification

and recall. AtHoc’s 2-way communication supports the

VA’s situational awareness and accountability requirements

with alert response tracking and real-time personnel status

reporting. When a user acknowledges a message through

a response option, AtHoc IWSAlerts captures, tracks, and

stores the data in a central repository with timestamp and

delivery information. A synchronized dashboard displays

aggregated personnel data, letting emergency operators

trace alert progress during emergency situations and

practice drills.

Pre-defined emergency scenarios are tailored specifically

for medical and healthcare crises.The alerts describe

the threat, categorize the threat level and provide vital

instructions for taking appropriate action, streamlining the

alert process.

AtHoc’s powerful alerting features notify physicians, nurses,

medical staff, administrators, police and safety personnel,

and emergency personnel about an incident, and can also

monitor the status of the hospital’s business-critical patient

record system. Alerts are sent if the patient record system is

offline for maintenance or if a facility system outage occurs.

The medical facility can use alerts for critical notifications

about healthcare-related notices such as organ transplant

availability and status. Operational efficiencies are

enhanced when the AtHoc system is applied to business

processes such as work shift changes or shift cancellation

so personnel are able to make timely decisions, mitigating

labor disputes.

The AtHoc solution provides protocol redundancy with full

failover capabilities, connecting an end device to multiple

gateways allowing one gateway to take over for the other in

the event of system breakdown, assuring seamless failover

for a high level of reliability. The deployment behind the

firewall within the secure private cloud architecture achieves

optimal balance of efficiencies, privacy of sensitive user

data and data security.

Healthcare regulations and guidelines are also attained

with full adherence to government compliance standards,

OSHA, Joint Commission, the Privacy Act of 1974, section

508, NIST security certifications, HEA and Clery Act.

The system also meets National Security and Homeland

Security Presidential Directive (NSPD-51/HSPD-20),

enabling continuity of government (COG) to continue

essential VA operations during a catastrophic event.

VA-PAS has also successfully participated in the 2012

National Level Exercise (NLE), a congressionally mandated

competitive preparedness program for emergency events,

sponsored annually by FEMA. At its conclusion, VA-PAS

was judged as the “Best in Class” solution fully capable

of national deployment. The integrated solution effectively

enabled end-to-end case management, demonstrating the

crucial capabilities of initiating alerts, collecting responses

for personnel accountability, and generating reports –

fulfilling all federally mandated requirements.

The Solution Delivered

Case Study

Case Study

Solution• AtHoc Enterprise Edition

• Secure private cloud architecture

• Integration with Navy PAAS

• Rapid, pervasive alerts via IP network

• Full failover capabilities

• Fully compliant with government and healthcare

The VA is the first agency to integrate emergency

notification with full personnel accountability, creating

one ubiquitous incident management, notification

and accountability system for all employees. The VA

Personnel Accountability System (VA-PAS), powered

by AtHoc and integrated with Navy PAAS, meets the

VA’s current and future enterprise-wide requirements

for unified emergency notification, critical life safety

and personnel accountability. AtHoc’s enterprise-class

system leverages existing IT investments and saves

federal funds and resources by combining modern

commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies for

emergency communications with government off-the-

shelf (GOTS) software for personnel accountability in a

secure private cloud.

The VA-PAS emergency manager can use the networked

system to send notifications via desktop pop-ups with

audio alarm, telephony voice alerts, email, fax, and

text messages—to all targeted devices. Since a crisis

can happen in a heartbeat, this system enables rapid

emergency alerts to hundreds of thousands of VA

personnel and ensures a safe response.

As an example, a VA emergency manager can publish a

high wind warning to alert medical transport helicopters

about landing difficulties. Managers also can use the

notification system to recall medical staff to specific

facilities due to a large influx of patients. The emergency

notification system can also be used for facility safety to

notify personnel of dangers such as a fire, flooding, gas

leak, power outage or chemical spill.

The powerful administration and multi-tenancy

capabilities of the AtHoc solution supports all VA facilities

and organizations from a central unified system while

establishing a virtual private system for every medical

facility, clinic or region, suitable for local and specific

alerting needs.

The successful implementation of AtHoc has satisfied VA

requirements and supported accountability, situational

awareness and most importantly, positively impacts the

safety and security of all VA personnel and patients.

Conclusion

Case Study

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