How D4H Provides a Solid Collaborative Communication Platform for Spartanburg HERT

Customer Background

In 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, SRHS formed the Hospital Emergency Response Team (HERT) to ensure the ability to respond to any kind of emergency. The HERT now consists of more than 100 volunteers available to assist the hospital and community in the event of a local or regional disaster.

The team is comprised of clinical and non-clinical volunteers who receive detailed and specific training that focuses on the “all hazards” approach to healthcare emergency management and response. These individuals dedicate their time to preserving lives and ensuring the continuity of care for not only the healthcare system and local community but their regional and national community as well.

The Spartanburg Regional Hospital Emergency Response Team (HERT) is unique in that it is the first hospital-based team of its type in South Carolina. They have strong ties to the community and routinely work with community partners during drills and real-life events. The HERT has formed Memorandums of Understanding and Agreement with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control to mobilize and operate the South Carolina Mobile Medical Facility and with the United States Army in conjunction with the National Disaster Medical System to deploy and augment their operations during catastrophic need or military casualty surge as mandated.

The Challenge

Spartanburg HERT is made up of responders from multiple disciplines that support various teams. The fact that team members are spread out across multiple teams can make it difficult to find a person from among the team, to perform an everyday task such as a repair or inspection on their emergency response equipment. Historically, the team has managed the inventory and assignments by way of pen, paper, spreadsheet, however, this was not an effective use of the team’s time and energy.

There was no way to simply communicate with a team member that a repair or inspection must be completed by a certain date. There was also no simple way for the responder to mark an inspection or calibration as complete. Another problem was sharing incident reports with members who missed a callout.

The Solution

With the help of D4H Equipment Management, Spartanburg Regional HERT can now assign a task to a particular member or post it on the team whiteboard for someone looking for a project. The software is cloud-based, so team members can access this information remotely, from any device with an internet connection.

“D4H has revolutionized how we conduct our business as well as provided a solid collaborative communication platform that provides cutting-edge technologies and effective outcomes.”
— Jeff Straub - Emergency Manager / System Safety Officer, Spartanburg Healthcare System.