Michigan Volunteer Registry Case Study

A Reserve of Qualified, Screened Volunteers is Ready to Assist When Disasters Strike

Background

The Michigan Department of Community Health Office of Public Health Preparedness (OPHP) is charged with protecting the health of Michigan citizens against chemical, biological and radiological threats. OPHP focuses on minimizing the threat to health from terrorist acts, accidents and other incidents.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and hurricanes Katrina and Rita spurred an impressive outpouring of volunteer aid offers. Thousands turned out to provide medical assistance to victims. However, their talents often could not be utilized because authorities could not verify their identity or medical credentials.

In 2005, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), issued guidelines to better manage medical volunteers in emergency situations. They mandated states develop electronic systems for registering, credentialing and deploying health care personnel to assist in emergencies.

Challenge

Even before the HRSA guidelines were released, Michigan began developing plans for registering, alerting and deploying Michigan volunteers.

“We began working on developing our system several years ago. There are many components to adhere to, but we were primarily looking to fit the program to our state’s needs while fulfilling the credentialing, verification and alerting requirements written in the HRSA guidelines,” said Virginia Ball, Michigan Volunteer Registry Project Coordinator.

Across its eight bioterrorism preparedness regions, Michigan has a strong infrastructure of public health and emergency management expertise (i.e., bioterrorism, Strategic National Stockpile, epidemiology, laboratory, trauma). What the state lacked was a unified resource for housing and accessing volunteer data. “We needed to group and capture volunteer data – their contact information, skills, specialties, certifications and other information that would make up their volunteer profile,” said Ball. “We also needed a system that would provide administrative flexibility for different levels of data query and alerting, yet be secure.”

Solution

Michigan OPHP chose Global Secure Volunteer Mobilizer, a web-based application for registering, credentialing, mobilizing and communicating with large volunteer groups. The customizable application allows for unlimited groups to be created and unlimited numbers of volunteers to be registered. “We were already familiar with Global Secure Systems and they were the obvious choice,” said Ball.

Flexibility, Security

With Global Secure Volunteer Mobilizer, volunteer coordinators can create organizational groups unique to each type of volunteer. Michigan OPHP initially created four groups: Licensed Health Professionals; Unlicensed Health Professionals; General Support Volunteers; and Food Industry Personnel. Five additional Citizen Corps Program groups have recently been added and currently, there are roughly 2,000 individual volunteers registered on the system.

Creating unique groups allows for specialized registration instructions, various methodologies for performing approvals into the system, and unique profiling questions. For example, the questions needed for Licensed Health Professionals are not applicable to Food Industry Personnel. Customized group registration sites ensure that participants don’t have to wade through irrelevant profiling questions. This simplifies and speeds registration and deployment, as well as leads to higher participation.

Data security and privacy are ensured in part by limiting the number, type, and access ability of the administrators. Access ability is organized according to a tiered structure (i.e., no restriction, restriction by group, or restriction by geography). Within each tier, personnel with certain expertise are selected to participate.

Dedicated Home Pages

Each volunteer group has a dedicated home page where administrators can post upcoming training sessions, helpful volunteer resources, emergency response plans, protocols, and drills. “Posting to the home pages doesn’t require html knowledge,” said Ball. “You just type in the text, post an attachment, and you are done.”

While the Global Secure Volunteer Mobilizer application enables Michigan to alert and mobilize volunteers via email and voice-through-phone technology, the home pages provide an alternative for regularly providing non-emergency information.

“When we have large-scale activities such as exercises or drills, we post information on the home pages,” said Ball. “We want to limit alerts so that when volunteers receive one, they know it is important and not just spam.”

Easy to Use

A user-friendly system was critical to adoption. Global Secure Volunteer Mobilizer makes recruitment, registration and administration hassle free. “The registration process takes only about five minutes,” noted Ball. In Michigan, applicants can indicate such things as contact information, profession, languages, specialties, skills, and in the future, employment status and other disaster response commitments. “The profiles are structured so that when volunteers are needed, the search may be based on any number of criteria,” said Ball.

MI Volunteer Registry administrators, many of whom are non-technical, find working in the system easy. Michigan’s OPHP conducted online recorded trainings for their administrators. “The first training took about an hour, followed by a second shorter session after our first system upgrade,” said Ball. “Besides a small amount of additional off-line individual training, that was really all that was needed.”

Volunteer Registry in Action

Testing is the key to ensuring that when the need to mobilize volunteers arises, the system is up to the task. In the fall of 2006, Michigan was one of four states to participate in a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services federal disaster exercise. “Through the Global Secure Volunteer Mobilizer platform, email and text pager alerts were automatically and simultaneously sent to certain volunteers willing to deploy in a federal emergency,” said Ball. “We had tested the MI Volunteer Registry for various in-state trainings and exercises however this was the first time it had been tested in a federal exercise involving DHHS and multiple states.”

The exercise tested response times, communication processes, chain of command, system and staff performance. "Overall it was beneficial and a success for Michigan. We will be working to apply the lessons learned in preparation for the next exercise or unplanned event," said Dr. Jacqueline Scott, MDCH Office of Public Health Preparedness Director.

Technology Improves Michigan Preparedness

The MI Volunteer Registry improves Michigan’s emergency response capabilities by creating a reserve of qualified, screened volunteers ready to assist when disasters strike. “When an emergency happens, timing of a response is critical,” said Ball. “To be able to pinpoint the type of volunteers you need and notify them automatically, via email and text-to-voice telephone calls, is a huge advantage over relying on spreadsheets and databases as was done in the past.”

“When Hurricane Katrina hit, the system was not yet in place. Many people wanted to volunteer and all their information had to be gathered in spreadsheets, relying on data sorts. Managing the information was tedious and time consuming,” said Ball.

“In the event of another large-scale event, coordinating emergency volunteer response will be much more streamlined. This is a very advanced, robust system that captures a large amount of volunteer data. The technology provides personnel and responders heightened confidence in our state’s capability in alerting and mobilizing volunteers during a large-scale emergency.”