Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
Customer Solution Case Study
Arizona’s SIREN Speeds Information Flow,
Helps to Avert Potential Epidemics
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Government
Customer Profile
With 2,500 employees, the Arizona
Department of Health Services is
responsible for coordinating public health
services; licensing hospitals and other
health care facilities; and overseeing
behavioral health services that are
delivered under Federal Title 9.
Business Situation
The Department of Health Services needed
a more comprehensive approach to interagency collaboration in order to address
and contain local or regional outbreaks of
potentially dangerous epidemics.
Solution
The Department rolled out and
implemented a program called SIREN
(Secure Integrated Response and
Electronic Notification infrastructure),
which utilized Microsoft® Office
SharePoint® Server 2007 and the
Microsoft .NET Framework.
Benefits
 Improved collaboration
 Rapid and secure communication
 Single point of access to information
"Arizona’s SIREN allows us to have a secure system
where we can share data with our public health
partners …, while being assured we are maintaining
our HIPAA compliance."
Will Humble, Deputy Assistant Director, Arizona Department of Health Services
Epidemic. It is a word that can strike as much fear in a population
as yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater. Whether the disease is
SARS, the Bird Flu, or the West Nile Virus, the key to addressing a
medical emergency—as well as to quell a dangerous public panic—
is to identify a potential outbreak early, marshal medical resources
rapidly, and contain the situation before it goes beyond control. It
also requires cooperation, coordination, and proactive collaboration
across federal, state, and local health and emergency management
agencies. This is a discipline the Arizona Department of Health
Services—via its successful SIREN program—is attempting to master
with Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and Microsoft .NET
products and services.
"Secure collaboration is
one of the huge benefits
that SharePoint [Server]
provides to SIREN."
Paul Barbeau, Logistics Section Chief, Bureau
of Emergency Preparedness Response,
Arizona Department of Health Services
Situation
Even before the tragic events of September
11, 2001, there was growing awareness
among federal, state, and local health and
emergency management services that a more
comprehensive approach to inter-agency
collaboration was needed to address and
contain local or regional outbreaks of
potentially dangerous epidemics. The rapid
globalization of the economy, together with
an increasingly mobile workforce, created a
new variety of ways for diseases to be
introduced and disseminated across broad
segments of the population. The terrorist
attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and
Washington, DC (followed by the Anthrax
event shortly thereafter) added an entirely
new dimension to planning for—and
responding to—epidemics intentionally
injected into society.
Arizona's Department of Health Services has
been on the forefront of new efforts to
address natural and man-made bio-hazards
that can threaten the population. The state
has developed a public health infrastructure
and is harnessing collaboration technologies
to keep a constant vigilant eye on the region's
health status. It then utilizes the same
technology infrastructure to rapidly route
emergency and health assets to isolate,
contain, and remediate dangerous situations.
The main barrier, however, to achieving a
high level of statewide alertness, is that
Arizona's public health system is not a
monolithically homogeneous environment.
"To get an idea of issues we have to
confront," explains Will Humble, Deputy
Assistant Director of Arizona's Department of
Health Services, "you have to realize that
public health in the State of Arizona is
administered through a collaboration
between the state and county health
departments who do the work in the local
communities.”
In Arizona, as in other states, local
communities have established their own
healthcare and emergency priorities within
sovereign jurisdictions. County, tribal, and
municipal agencies operate independently of
state authority. There are good reasons for
this federated system. Large, dense city
populations, for instance, have healthcare
and emergency management concerns that
are quite different from more sparsely
populated rural communities. Nevertheless, it
has long been realized that these disparate
health and emergency services agencies
must work together to achieve key mission
objectives.
In the 1990s, most of the coordination took
place over the phone, through faxes and
rudimentary electronic bulletin board systems
available at dial-up access speeds. All of
these communication vehicles (while
representing state-of-the-art in technology at
the time) created huge opportunities for
miscommunication and for breakdowns in
collaboration. The rapid proliferation of the
Internet in the late 1990s and early 2000s
created a chance to better share data via email; but fell short of creating the
collaborative environment necessary to
effectively monitor and rapidly respond to
conditions in the field.
Solution
Over the past six years, the Arizona
Department of Health Services has rolled out
and implemented a program called SIREN
(Secure Integrated Response and Electronic
Notification infrastructure), which has rapidly
evolved to become the centerpiece of
Arizona’s Public Health Information Network
(PHIN).
SIREN reduces process deficiencies by
accelerating the flow of information in
response to a bio-terrorism event, disease
epidemic, or other public health disasters.
“The ability to
collaborate during
actual events and
exercises is critical.”
Paul Barbeau, Logistics Section Chief, Bureau
of Emergency Preparedness Response,
Arizona Department of Health Services
The SIREN infrastructure is a Service
Oriented Architecture (SOA) extranet
environment built on the Microsoft® .NET
Framework utilizing Microsoft Windows®
SharePoint® Services, including: online
collaboration, information dissemination, and
document sharing. These capabilities connect
public health agencies, including emergency
management, healthcare and medical
services, and public safety at the local, state,
and federal levels.
It also acts as a back-bone network and
central point of access for core applications,
including MEDSIS (Medical Electronic
Disease Surveillance and Intelligence
System).
"The primary catalyst for increased
communication came back in 2002 when we
received additional federal emergency
preparedness funding to build out the
infrastructure, the alerting system, and our
contact lists and groups. We started with
SharePoint [Server], as it provides the ability
to deliver information to targeted audiences
and develop our public health infrastructure
in a consistent, user-friendly manner," says
John Nelson, Arizona Department of Health
Services, Strategic Planning Manager for IT.
“SIREN allows us to have a secure system
where we can share data with our public
health partners in local health departments
and community healthcare organizations. It
also ensures we are maintaining HIPAA
compliance," explains Humble. “It provides a
secure infrastructure where we host
applications and share sensitive information
that cannot—or should not—be out on the
public Internet.”
post drafts of a County-wide emergency
response plan for pandemic influenza on the
SIREN site, it is not viewable to the public so
it can’t get confused as final documents.
However, [all appropriate parties] can provide
comments about each other’s plans in a nonthreatening and non-public way. Once we
have a final document, we can publish it on
the public Internet for everybody to read," he
says.
When an emergency situation such as an
epidemic or pandemic event does occur, the
SIREN system becomes the main platform for
coordinating the actions of first responders. It
also serves as the main repository of
information for executive decision support at
the command center.
Benefits
The effectiveness of SIREN during events is
enhanced by the fact that all participants also
use it for their daily work.
Improved Collaboration
SIREN is used regularly to access a variety of
applications, share information on health
developments, and monitor a wide range of
events, thereby promoting fluency for joint
training initiatives and emergencies.
"The ability to collaborate during actual
events and exercises is critical," says
Barbeau.
Rapid and Secure Communication
In emergency situations SIREN is used for
rapid and secure information transmission as
well as updates and notifications. It now
provides online support via:
All Internet-based devices.
Satellite and wireless connections.
 PDAs and mobile phones.

"Secure collaboration is one of the huge
benefits that SharePoint [Server] provides to
SIREN," explains Paul Barbeau, Logistics
Section Chief in the Bureau of Emergency
Preparedness Response. "For example, if we

Single Point of Access to Information
"We recently had a Point of Dispensing [POD]
exercise in the northern region of the State
that involved County Health Departments and
Tribal Nations," says Nelson. "They had a
number of different systems that were
exercised during the event. They quickly
found the appropriate sites within SIREN’s
Public Health Preparedness Portal created for
their exercise and were able to dynamically
communicate across jurisdictional
boundaries with their partners. The ease of
use, single point of access, and flexibility
contributed to the users viewing SIREN as
‘extensions’ of their own systems."
Today, 150 federal, state, local, and tribal
agencies are connected to the SIREN system,
complemented by numerous hospitals,
private healthcare clinics, and even facilities
in Mexico. The infrastructure is utilized by
multiple applications, some with as many as
1,500 users.
About The SIMI Group
The SIMI Group worked with the Arizona
Department of Human Services to design an
architecture, public health infrastructure, and
integrated interoperable solution to meet the
diverse needs of the State of Arizona. The
SIREN solution covers many aspects of public
health, including integration with existing
local and Tribal preparedness and response
efforts—through a secure, Web-based
platform, independent of the Department of
Public Health (DPH) internal network
infrastructure.
The SIMI Group, working with ADHS staff,
Hewlett Packard, Cisco, NEC, ESRI, Qwest,
and other partners, developed and
implemented the SIREN platform. In addition,
the team implemented SIREN-hosted
Applications/Modules, including: directory
services, tiered security, portal technologies,
portal content management, two-way
communications, response collaboration,
notification, and inventory/resource tracking
capability.
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For more information about The SIMI Group
products and services, visit the Web site at:
www.simigroup.com
For more information about Arizona
Department of Health Services products
and services, visit the Web site at:
www.azdhs.gov
Software and Services

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT
MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS
SUMMARY.
Document published April 2007
Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
− Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2006
− Microsoft Exchange Server 2003
− Microsoft Internet Security and
Acceleration Server 2006
− Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
− Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005
− Windows Server® 2003 R2
Partner

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