Though COVID-19 taxed every jurisdiction in the world, it affected some areas and populations more than others. Native American communities were particularly hard hit. Though Indigenous and other people of color are no more susceptible to the virus than other demographics, their often-insolated communities and historically unequal access to employment, nutrition, and healthcare make fighting the disease more difficult.
As a result, health departments consistently reported Native American infection rates and deaths due to COVID-19 three times higher than the general U.S. population.
Recognizing these aggravating circumstances, a tribal entity in the southwestern U.S. called on Juvare to help it make data-driven decisions and respond to the outbreak by coordinating emergency management activities by communicating with county, state, and federal health authorities.
A large Native American tribal entity in the Southwest faced extra challenges when the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in the United States. The tribe found itself ill-equipped to manage the crisis from a virtual emergency operations center (EOC) or to mount an effective response to the increasing healthcare needs of its 1000-member community and its diaspora.
Hindered by inefficient preparedness and response technology to centralize communication and collaboration with residents as well as state and federal authorities, the tribe found it difficult to:
• coordinate, schedule, and maintain adequate staffing levels among healthcare providers, vital government services, and tribal businesses
• order, store, schedule, and distribute personal protection equipment (PPE) and disinfecting supplies
• trace members’ potential contacts with COVID-infected people.
Tribal Council leaders engaged with Juvare to implement WebEOC and the Workplace add-on to manage an automated, comprehensive virtual EOC for managing tasks and incidents from planning through deployment. With WebEOC and the Workplace add-on, tribal government gained a centralized method for collecting, sorting, and evaluating data from county, state, and national emergency management agencies. This common operating picture gives decision-makers the current, consistent, accurate situational awareness they need to assess real-time circumstances, determine material needs, and allocate personnel and resources.
Collaboration with these partner agencies is especially critical to the tribe, allowing it to make specific requests for assistance and supplies seamlessly through the seamlessly integrated WebEOC solution.
With COVID-19 forcing all but essential workers to remain sheltered in place, WebEOC Workplace’s ability to access emergency response resources and data from anywhere, and to keep track of the duties to which every remote worker is assigned has been a literal lifesaver for the tribe. Employees can check-in, update their status and communicate with supervisors and teammates through the platform. By eliminating redundant and inefficient telephone calls and passive email messaging, law enforcement and medical teams can receive status updates immediately through the platform to arrive more quickly to emergency calls.
Juvare WebEOC allows the tribe to maintain continuity in its operations throughout the pandemic, making it easy to manage employee check-ins and help managers identify where additional personnel is required to accomplish mission-critical tasks.
The platform also helps identify which duties can be easily performed remotely, and which workers needed respirators, masks, gowns, gloves, and other protective equipment. This functionality, combined with the ability to trace contacts who may have been exposed to the virus and need to isolate and work from home and managers could make contingency plans in case employees became sidelined because of COVID-19.
Similarly, the Workplace add-on gave facility managers, company directors, and government agencies insight into their operations through high-level dashboards. Executives could centralize the latest data and view it granularly as well as communitywide. This allowed them to understand PPE needs, track inventory, distribute supplies more equitably, and remain aware of all new developments to make more informed decisions.
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