CommandAware® Incident Management System Used for Emergency Response in Great California ShakeOut Earthquake Drill

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Concerro, Inc., the market leader in enterprise-wide hospital shift and emergency workforce management software, is pleased to announce the successful use of its CommandAware® hospital incident management system during the Great California ShakeOut – the largest earthquake drill in U.S. history - held October 15^th to help improve disaster preparedness. More than 6.8 million people throughout California took part in the first statewide earthquake drill, organized by The Earthquake Country Alliance.

“We were pleased that 68 medical departments logged in and accessed CommandAware and 21 incident command system positions fulfilled their assigned roles. CommandAware is a substantial program in that the tasks, documentation, tracking and communications that can be done with it appear to be limitless.”

Over 400 individuals from 26 hospitals, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, City of Hope National Medical Center, Glendale Memorial Hospital, Torrance Memorial Medical Center, UCSD Medical Center, and USC University Hospital, activated the CommandAware web-based incident management system to ensure effective emergency response and collaborative networking for the drill.

“During the Great ShakeOut earthquake disaster exercise, our plan was to attempt to utilize the CommandAware program hospital-wide,” said Linda Dobie, incident commander and administrator of risk management at Torrance Memorial Medical Center. “We were pleased that 68 medical departments logged in and accessed CommandAware and 21 incident command system positions fulfilled their assigned roles. CommandAware is a substantial program in that the tasks, documentation, tracking and communications that can be done with it appear to be limitless.”

CommandAware made it possible for participating hospitals to access a common communications framework to manage their response capabilities, quickly coordinate emergency response and facilitate post-emergency after action reports.

“Using CommandAware greatly exceeded our expectations,” added Judy Retter, RN, director of emergency management at Torrance Memorial Medical Center. “Users were able to log on and navigate the system with very little training, sending their reports, messages and requests in a much more efficient manner than in the past.”

Graham Barnes, CEO of Concerro, said, “Being able to effectively communicate and have as much situational awareness as possible is crucial to surviving a major disaster. We are pleased that CommandAware’s communications platform enabled hundreds of hospital users to collaborate and respond in real-time throughout the ShakeOut exercise drill.”

CommandAware is the most comprehensive and widely adopted hospital-centric incident management system available to hospitals today. Currently adopted in over 250 facilities and government entities across twelve states, CommandAware addresses all phases of disaster response including preparation, mitigation, response and recovery. For additional information, visit www.commandaware.com.

ShakeOut exercises are now being planned as annual events in California to occur on the third Thursday in October. The next exercise is scheduled for Oct. 21, 2010.

About Concerro

Concerro is a healthcare Cloud Computing (Software-as-a-Service) company that provides workforce and emergency management programs that facilitate collaboration, ease of use and real-time information access to improve the cost, efficiency and safety of patient care in over 400 hospitals nationwide. The company has won numerous awards and recognition, including being named to the prestigious Inc. 5000 in 2008 and 2009 as one of the most rapidly growing privately-held companies and Top 100 Software Companies, and receiving Red Herring’s 100 most promising private technology ventures in North America and Best of SaaS Showplace (BoSS) awards. To learn more, visit www.concerro.com, or follow us on Twitter.