PTF West Palm Beach Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center Functional Exercise AAR

“The Pathfinder Virtual Badge program appears to be especially beneficial in the areas of employee safety, accountability, and real-time reporting. In addition to the safety benefit, employees and program managers can download data related to time and location to use for patient documentation and in the case of legal incidents.”

Robert Gawel, Supervisory Vocational Rehabilitation Specialist

VA Medical Center, West Palm Beach

The West Palm Beach Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center conducted a half-day Functional Exercise to evaluate the effectiveness of replacing traditional information management systems with mobile technology to improve the timeliness, accuracy, and scope for managing critical information during emergency operations. The exercise was held in conjunction with the Florida Division of Emergency Management’s annual HURREX (Hurricane Kimo). At the time of the exercise, Tropical Storm Kimo was approaching the west coast of Florida and expected to strengthen into a hurricane over the weekend. While the exercise tested other functions, the primary focus was on preparations for a hurricane strike.

Virtual Badge during the 2016 WPB VAMC Functional Exercise

The 2016 VAMC WPB Hurricane Kimo SWS, HBPC, Code Amber and Field Employee Safety Hurricane Kimo Functional Exercise provided VA staff with an opportunity to test the implementation of an electronic data management system in a low-risk environment. The efficiencies of replacing traditional documentation methods with mobile technology were made evident during exercise operations and more research is needed on ways that this system can be implemented for the West Palm Beach Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center.

With the general agreement of the various participating personnel and staff present, the Virtual Badge software would rate a Best Practice in terms of serving the needs of the VAMC WPB Emergency Management office. Combined with senior Social Services’ staff, Command and field officers from the VA police force, and union personnel, the Virtual Badge and Pathfinder VA applications present an excellent opportunity for cost efficiencies, quicker and better allocation of resources, far improved situational awareness on a common operating system, and a robust method for securing the safety of employees and their families.

“Pathfinder Virtual Badge software allows us to be able to immediately track a child registered in the Family Support Program who has been reported as missing. With this software, we are able to identify the child with a photograph and information that is scanned into the system while live tracking our units who were searching for the child on our campus.”

LT Eric Golden, VA Police

VA Medical Center, West Palm Beach

Please download the PTF AAR at: www.disastersolutions.cc/history

For more information, please contact Matthew Campbell.

Matthew Campbell

Pathfinders Task Force

(561) 329–0068

matt@pathfinders.cc

For more information about the Virtual Badge software, please visit www.virtualbadge.com