15 hospitals put emergency management solution to test only two weeks after implementation
VERONA, NJ (September 29, 2008) – For the first time, the 15 hospitals in the County of Riverside in Southern California now have a comprehensive, technological method to plan for and respond to disasters, thanks to a recent agreement that brought the facilities and the Riverside County Department of Public Health on board with Live Process, whose centralized Web-based disaster preparation and response system makes it the leader in healthcare emergency preparedness and incident management.
The County-wide implementation, which began in August, comes as LiveProcess continues a national expansion plan that is bringing more freestanding hospitals, healthcare systems and regional networks into its growing national network.
The Riverside area hospitals include: Corona Regional Medical Center; Desert Regional Medical Center; Eisenhower Medical Center; Hemet Valley Medical Center; Inland Valley Medical Center; John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital; Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Riverside and Moreno Valley; Menifee Valley Medical Center; Palo Verde Hospital; Parkview Community Hospital; Rancho Springs Medical Center; Riverside Community Hospital; Riverside County Regional Medical Center; and San Gorgonio Memorial Hospital.
"The addition of our new customers is an important milestone for LiveProcess as we begin expanding throughout the country," said Nathaniel Weiss, CEO and founder. LiveProcess recently closed a significant growth capital financing round to drive the continued national implementation of its first-to-market emergency management solution. The company is aggressively expanding nationwide as demand escalates for a comprehensive solution to emergency preparedness and incident management.
The addition of these California facilities marks a significant achievement for LiveProcess because it is the company's first County-wide installation. Riverside County is the nations 15th largest county, the fourth largest in California and one of the nation's fastest growing population centers, nearly doubling in size since 1990. The County encompasses more than 7,000 square miles in the heart of a region of Southern California known as the Inland Empire.
According to the Riverside County Office of Emergency Services (OES), the County's most considerable emergency management challenges come from earthquakes, severe weather and wildfire. Riverside County is home to a plethora of national parks and forests, including the Cleveland National Forest, Coachella Valley National Wildlife Refuge, Joshua Tree National Park, San Bernardino National Forest and the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument.
Since 1990, 12 presidential declarations of disaster have been issued in Riverside County—10 of which were either the direct result of weather conditions or were greatly impacted by weather. The events of September 11 also have placed an increased emphasis on the readiness for terrorist related incidents, which the OES claims as its primary focus.
Gary Miner, who represents LiveProcess' Pacific Region and directs the company's recently opened West Coast office in San Diego, said the Riverside installation marks one of the finest moments in the company's seven-year history. "Riverside has been a great implementation and we hope to emulate that success around the country," Miner said. "I think this shows how much our company's interests are aligned precisely with the County of Riverside, and that is making sure hospitals are safe and have the tools that they need to efficiently respond to and recover from a disaster."
Only 3 weeks after implementation, the hospitals used LiveProcess in a County-wide simulated earthquake drill designed to test their readiness in advance of Golden Guardian, the nations largest state sponsored emergency exercise planned for November 13-18. Golden Guardian 2008 will test California's capability to respond and recover during a major catastrophic earthquake and will be a full-scale exercise scenario focusing on a simulated, catastrophic 7.8 magnitude earthquake along the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault.
"Our communications with our hospitals were seamless, thanks in large part to the value LiveProcess brought to the exercise," said Michael Osur, Deputy Director of the Riverside County Department of Public Health. "We were pleased with the way the system performed. Live Process solved many of the information sharing issues that we have had with the hospitals in the past."
"The fact that all of our hospitals were on the same page, in real time in a coordinated environment, was invaluable," said Osur.
Osur also noted that he was "immediately impressed" with the ability of the hospitals to utilize the LiveProcess system so effectively with such a short learning curve. "LiveProcess became the bridge between the hospitals and the health department," he added.
About LiveProcess
LiveProcess was established in the wake of the September 11th attacks and the worldwide SARS outbreak in response to widespread recognition that healthcare needed a better way to plan and respond to disasters. In 2004, LiveProcess launched its centralized, Web-based disaster preparation and incident management platform—the first of its kind for healthcare—to help healthcare organizations prepare for and respond to both large- and small-scale emergencies and disasters. Today, it is the leader in emergency management for hospitals.
The LiveProcess platform is used by hundreds of hospitals across the country. In addition, the American Hospital Association (AHA) has exclusively endorsed LiveProcess as the choice for disaster readiness and incident command solutions for its more than 5,000 member hospitals.
The LiveProcess platform provides hospitals, other healthcare providers and public health agencies with the ability to evaluate and manage their own preparedness and state of readiness, as well as coordinate response with other entities, from small incidents through large-scale healthcare emergencies. Its broad and growing range of fully-integrated tools include Hazard Vulnerability Analyses (HVAs), an integrated Incident Command System (ICS), NIMS Compliance activities, Drills for Readiness and Compliance, a real-time Event Log, and Competency-Based Training capabilities.
For more information, visit www.liveprocess.com.
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