Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Satellites connect Illinois health

From: NEXTEL-1
Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 16:59:16 -0400

Satellites connect Illinois health
BY Diane Frank
July 9, 2004

Illinois officials are deploying a satellite-based alert and warning
system to link hospitals and public health offices statewide.
Illinois was the site of a biological attack in the TopOff2 exercise,
which is a simulation run by the Homeland Security Department. In the
simulation, the attack spread nationwide and then worldwide. More than
130 hospitals were involved in the exercise, which demonstrated that
public health officials struggle with nearly every aspect of
communications, said Thomas Mefferd, director of the DuPage County,
Ill., Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

"We are installing, as we speak, a satellite-based communications system
that will link our primary command with hospitals statewide," he told
the House Select Committee on Homeland Security Thursday.

Illinois, like most other states, participates in the various public
health information sharing programs funded by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. Officials also felt they needed a specific
system for providing high-reliability alerts and warnings, Mefferd said
after the hearing. They chose Florida-based Communications Laboratories
Inc.'s EMnet system, which officials in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and
several other states also use.

The EMnet system starts with the state's 12 regional hospitals. Counties
can expand capabilities to other hospitals in the area, Mefferd said.
DuPage County officials are putting it in all of the hospitals.

The EMnet system also links into the state's other communications
systems, including an Internet-based system that officials at the
Illinois Public Health Department are implementing "to share patient
information across the board, so as we look at hospital capability, bed
capability, so on and so forth, that can be rapidly transmitted to our
state and public health center in Springfield," Mefferd said.

http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2004/0705/web-illinois-07-09-04.asp

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