Rave Mobile Safety has launched a COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Solution that will help public health agencies identify individuals for whom vaccination should be a priority, tailor alerts to these individuals, send reminders for second vaccinations, and then follow-up after the process is complete to check for side effects.

On November 20^th, representatives of Pfizer and German biotech company BioNTech filed an emergency use authorization request for their COVID-19 vaccine claiming it is 95% effective in protecting against the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus. Later this week, a panel of independent experts convened by the Food and Drug Administration will review the request and are expected to give their approval for an initial rollout of the vaccine.

Subject to approval, the federal agency tasked with distributing doses of the vaccine to state health departments – “Operation Warp Speed” – is ready to deliver 6.4 million doses of the vaccine immediately. The agency has already conducted dry shipping runs to make sure public health agencies receiving the vaccine are comfortable handling it, and believes it will be possible to distribute 40 million doses of the vaccine by the end of the year.

Who Will Receive COVID-19 Vaccine First?

Although decisions about who receives the COVID-19 vaccine first will be made on a state-by-state basis, public health agencies are expected to follow the guidelines set by the CDC´s advisory committee last month. These guidelines recommend healthcare personnel, other essential workers, individuals at high risk of catching COVID-19 due to underlying medical conditions, and residents over sixty-five years of age should be prioritized ahead of the general population.

While it should be straightforward to identify healthcare personnel and other essential workers, public health agencies may encounter challenges in identifying at-risk individuals due to a lack of data. Very few states maintain special needs registries of at-risk individuals; and, of those that do, most require self-registration – meaning that many people could be omitted from the registries due to a lack of knowledge about the service or an unwillingness to reveal person information.

Overcoming Identification Issues with Smart 911

On its website, the CDC maintains a page dedicated to Disability and Health Emergency Preparedness Monitoring on which it lists tools public health agencies can use to learn as much as possible about individuals with medical conditions in their jurisdictions and identify their needs. Of all the tools listed, the one given the most coverage is the Smart 911 system – a secure, national database designed to identify individuals who may need assistance during an emergency.

The Smart 911 system gives individuals or their carers the opportunity to create an online safety profile which lists any medical conditions they may be suffering from or any mobility issues they may experience in an emergency. This information is only available to call center dispatchers on receipt of a 9-1-1 call and public health officials – who could use it to identify at-risk individuals and those who may need assistance attending a medical center to receive a vaccination.

The Rave Mobile Safety Vaccine Distribution Solution

Rave Mobile Safety´s Vaccine Distribution Solution gives public health agencies a way to access Smart 911´s crowd-sourced data in order to identify at-risk individuals who should be prioritized for a COVID-19 vaccination. Once identified, public health agencies will be able to get in touch with each individual via SMS text, email, or voicemail, inform them where and when they will be able to get vaccinated, and determine whether it is necessary to arrange travel to and from the medical center.

Once individuals have received their first vaccination, public health agencies can configure the Vaccine Distribution Solution to send text reminders for the second vaccination (each of Pfizer´s vaccines requires two doses to be effective), and a subsequent follow-up message to check for side effects. In this way, public health agencies can better identify at-risk individuals, better track distribution progress in their jurisdictions, and automate vaccine team coordination.

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The Rave 2020 Summit will be taking place October 19-21, 2020 and will feature exciting keynote speeches, product training and best practice sessions, networking opportunities, and much more.

Rave Mobile Safety has taken the decision to go virtual for the Rave 2020 Summit this fall to help ensure the safety of attendees, exhibitors, and staff . While the Summit is virtual this year for the very first time, it will still deliver all the elements of a live event, albeit in an online environment.

The Rave 2020 Summit kicks off on Monday October 19, 2020 for VIP ticket holders. The first day consists of product training sessions for Rave Alert Admins and covers best practices and tips, Rave Panic Button management, and Rave Alert basic training.

The second and third days of the event consist of keynote presentations, best practice sessions, roundtable and panel discussions, and other educational sessions. Tuesday October 20, 2020 is open to all attendees, with Wednesday October 21, 2020 open only to Rave customers.

Throughout the event, attendees will have the opportunity for one-on-one meetings with a Rave product guru in the Guru Lounge and will be able to get answers to questions and obtain advice on critical safety challenges.

Rave Virtual Summit 2020 – Highlights for Healthcare Professionals

Highlights of the Rave 2020 Summit for healthcare professionals on Tuesday October 20, 2020 include:

Keynote Speaker: Clint Emerson

11:30 am – 12 pm: Keynote presentation by Clint Emerson, retired Navy SEAL, crisis management professional and best-selling author. When the world hands you a bad situation, Clint Emerson can give you the skills to be prepared.

12-12:10 pm: Networking Break: Discover who’s attending the Rave Summit, connect and chat with other individuals in the corporate and healthcare sector.

12:10-12:40 pm: Communication Problems Session: Discover what really goes wrong with communication. When someone doesn’t get the message, there are actually 20 key failure modes. This session covers the Sender-Medium-Receiver Model of communication, the underlying causes of communication failures, and the three types of information needed for success.

12:40-1:10 pm: Roundtable Session: COVID-19 Lessons Learned & Best Practices for individuals in corporations and healthcare.

1:30-2 pm (Two Sessions to Choose From):

Oh No! Not Another Emergency Notification System

Wake Forest University experienced its first homicide in January 2018 when there was a shooting at a party held by non-Wake Forest affiliates. The University Police Communication Center acted fast to send an alert using the emergency notification system they had in place, but things did not go as planned. Hear from the communication center supervisor for Wake Forest University Police Department as she details what went wrong, the improvements the university has made, and how she got her team on board with the implementation of Rave Alert.

Panel Discussion: Effective Constituent Communication

2020 has reaffirmed the importance of timely and effective constituent, stakeholder and employee communications. In addition to the first pandemic in over 100 years, the U.S. is grappling with many other critical events like severe weather and civil unrest. Hear from panelists as they share their varied experiences and strategies to keep their communities safe and informed.

 2-2:45 pm: Panel discussion: The Next Phase of COVID-19 Response and Beyond

In this session, panelists will tackle the issues related to emergency response and critical communication and collaboration in the age of COVID-19, the changes organizations have already made, and how to use the lessons learned since March 2020 to prepare for the next phase or crisis.

Registration and Cost

General admission tickets are available free of charge which will provide access to the best practice sessions, panel discussions, and the keynote speaker presentations on Tuesday October 20, 2020.

Current Rave users can obtain a general admissions ticket free of charge which will provide access to the best practice sessions and keynote speaker presentations on Tuesday October 20 and Wednesday, October 21, 2020.

VIP tickets include access to product training sessions taking place on Monday October 19, 2020, in addition to best practice sessions and keynote speaker presentations on the remaining two days, as well as access to the Guru Lounge. VIP Tickets must be purchased in advance and cost $99 per person.

Registration for the Rave 2020 Summit is now open but closes on October 16, 2020, and 12pm ET.

REGISTER FOR THE VIRTUAL RAVE 2020 SUMMIT

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Earlier this year we invited HIPAA Journal readers to take part in the Rave Mobile Safety annual survey of workplace safety and preparedness. The company has now released the findings of the survey which reveal the level of preparedness for emergencies in healthcare and other industries across the United States.

It should be noted that the survey took place before the COVID-19 public health emergency was declared, which will naturally have triggered a shift in priorities at many organizations.

Safety in the Workplace in 2020

The need for effective communication in emergencies has been highlighted by the coronavirus pandemic, but the survey shows there are other pressing reasons for improving safety and communication in the workplace.  In 2019, when the survey was last conducted, 26 respondents reported cases of violence in the workplace. This year the number of individuals who have experienced violence in the workplace has doubled.

The survey showed employees are becoming more safety conscious. 58% of respondents said they would report a safety concern in the workplace regardless of whether they could voice concerns anonymously; however, a high percentage of Gen Z and millennials – 41% – would only report safety concerns if it was possible to do so anonymously. This suggests this 18-29-year olds are concerned about negative consequences of voicing their safety concerns.

While most employers have developed emergency plans, many are not conducting drills. For instance, 76% of employers have emergency plans for severe weather events, yet only 40% conducted drills to practice their response to such an event, even though 48% of respondents said they had experienced a severe weather event in the past year. Most organizations have developed emergency plans for cyberattacks, but 51% of respondents said drills had not been performed to test those plans. Almost 30% of employees were unsure or unaware about their employer’s emergency plans, with 18-29-year olds the least well informed.

Communication in Emergencies

The range of methods used to communicate with workers in emergency situations has increased in 2020. Email remains the most common method of communication and is used by 63% of organizations to communicate emergency information, but communication methods such as mass text messaging have grown in popularity. Mass text messaging is now used by 42% of companies represented in the survey, although many still rely on outdated communication methods such as in-person announcements, which exclude remote workers.

The survey showed employers tend to stick with dated communication methods, even though employees would prefer to receive notifications about safety and security using a more rapid and easily accessible system, such as mass text messages.

Emergency Communication in Healthcare

The survey revealed a significant percentage of healthcare workers were unaware of emergency plans for events such as system outages (22%) and active shooters (16%). When there are emergency situations, email was the most common method of communication, used by 65% of healthcare organizations. Intercom systems were also commonly used (50%) along with in-person announcements (44%). While these can be effective onsite, they are not effective for communicating with remote workers, who would prefer to receive notifications via text message, but only 41% of healthcare organizations are using mass text messaging notifications in emergency situations. The survey also revealed gaps in safety protocols, with 80% of healthcare workers not required to perform a safety check-in when working off-site.

You can view the full results of the Annual Workplace Safety and Preparedness Study on this link.

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