Public Health Systems Development - Office of the Secretary

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PUBLIC HEALTH VIDEO CONFERENCING NETWORK (PHVCN)

PHVCN Purpose

The PHVCN provides a tool for communication between the Department of Health, local health jurisdictions (LHJs) and tribal public health.

About the PHVCN (PDF, 196KB)

The PHVCN project provided networked video equipment to qualifying local health jurisdictions and tribes in Washington. The video network allows participants to easily meet face-to-face without the cost of travel. As of March 2011, 36 sites across the state have video conference units through the project. A grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for H1N1 pandemic influenza response provided the funding for this project.

PHVCN Sites

The PHVCN currently includes 36 sites across the state. (PDF, 620KB)

23 Local Health Jurisdictions (LHJ)
13 Tribal health facilities

Features of the PHVCN

Self-Service Dialing – Any partner site can establish a video conference connection.
Phone Ports – Phone participants can join a video call.
Document Viewing – The People and Content feature can be used to show presentations.
Point to Point or Multipoint – Single or multiple video conference capable sites can be connected.
Hardware Support – Sites that received their equipment as part of the project get three years of hardware support, maintenance, and training through June 2013 from Solutionz, Inc.
Bridge Support – Department of Health technical staff assist with video conference meeting rooms and the video conference bridge.

Priority Use of the PHVCN

Because the PHVCN is supported by emergency preparedness and response funding to improve communications between state, tribal, and local health partners during emergencies, the following priorities are established:

Public health emergency response.
Public health work that involves local public health staff (LHJs and/or tribal public health).
Other county or tribal business.

PHVCN bridge resources will be scheduled on a first-come first-serve basis. This includes audio ports for phone participants and increased meeting room sizes for video conferences with more than 5 sites.

Responsibilities of Participating Sites

All sites that receive equipment as part of the PHVCN project agree to:

Maintain the equipment and keep it in good working order.
Identify an on-site PHVCN contact person and assure that our agency has the current contact information for that person.
Reserve their own equipment and conference room resources for scheduled events they wish to participate in.
Share the equipment with other governmental public health agencies that do not have equipment.

Department of Health Use of the PHVCN

Department of Health staff are not to obligate LHJ or tribal health resources. Agency use of the PHVCN is reserved for events that involve local public health staff (LHJs and/or tribal public health) and fit the priority uses described above.

Technical Support

PHVCN sites that received equipment as part of the project have access to 24x7 technical support through Solutionz, Inc. Contact them by phone at (888) 815-0322 or e-mail helpdesk@solutionzinc.com . Be sure to have your 14 digit serial number found on the back of the HDX endpoint available prior to submitting your request.

DOH technical support is available to assist with video conference meeting room dialing or connection issues, meetings with greater than 5 sites, or if there is a need for audio only ports on a video call. Contact the DOH PHVCN Bridge Operators at (360) 236-4455 M – F/8 –5pm or e-mail VCSupport@doh.wa.gov.

Routine maintenance on the Public Health Video Conference Network occurs twice a month on Thursday evenings after 6pm. During these maintenance procedures, brief disruptions to PHVCN services may occur.

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