JeffALERT Emergency Notification System

Contact

Name: Joseph E. Byham, MAS, CPM
Position: Vice President, Public Safety
Organization: Thomas Jefferson University & Jefferson Health

130 S. Ninth Street
Edison Building, Suite 1620
Philadelphia, PA 19107

Contact Number(s):
Name: Jennifer Keene
Position: Systems Administrator

33 S. Ninth Street, Suite 600
Philadelphia, PA 19107

Contact Number(s):

Frequently Asked Questions

General FAQs

Jefferson selected the services of a company, MIR3™, which delivers time-sensitive emergency notifications via phone calls, text-messaging and email, to Jefferson students, faculty and staff within minutes of an emergency affecting Jefferson and the surrounding campus.

The JeffALERT system is powered by MIR3™, a leader in Intelligent Notification solutions for global enterprises. MIR3™’s unified, multi-modal emergency communication system supports all types of voice- and text-based communication devices and provides two-way notifications and instructions to students, staff and faculty during critical events. For more information about MIR3™, please visit their website.

In the event of a major emergency (fire, hazardous chemical spill, hurricane, weather emergency, or suspicious activity and/or threat to safety) affecting Jefferson and the surrounding campus, you will automatically receive an emergency communication from the system via a variety of vehicles, including text messaging, e-mail, and calls to cellular phones and work and phones.

All students with an active general student record in the Banner Web system (for the current to upcoming term) are eligible to receive JeffALERT notifications.

All paid university faculty and staff are eligible to receive JeffALERT notifications. Please update PeopleSoft to ensure your contact information is current so you can receive these notifications.

For students, the information you provide in Banner Web for cellular phones and land lines, along with your Jefferson e-mail accounts, will be used. For faculty and staff the system will use information included in PeopleSoft. It is therefore important for you to make sure all your information is up to date. Please provide a cellular phone number, home number (if you have one) and populate the work phone number with the complete office number you wish to use for emergency communications. The system will automatically use your Jefferson e-mail account and any corporate issued cellular phone or pager.

Since the JeffALERT system will be used to notify you in an emergency situation, we strongly recommend that you provide contact information for YOU, the subscriber. Provide the contact numbers you are most likely to check/answer should a message be sent to you…most likely, while you are on campus.

The contact information that you enter into Banner Web or PeopleSoft, such as your cellular phone number, home number, main number or office number, will only be provided to MIR3™ for the explicit purposes of notifying you in the event of an emergency. MIR3™ has agreed that they have no right to use your contact information for any purpose other than notifying you via the JeffALERT Emergency Notification System. They do not have rights to sell, disclose or trade your contact information.

Only the individuals employed by Jefferson who must use this information to administer and manage the JeffALERT Emergency Notification System will have access to your contact information.

JeffALERT is set up to contact you using a number of vehicles including text messaging, emails, and automated calls to cellular phones, office phones pagers and home phones. The system will cycle once through these vehicles to ensure it has notified you of an emergency situation.

For text messaging, the number that will display on your cellular phone is: 24639. We would recommend that you save this number in your cellular phone address book and identify it as the JeffALERT number. Future emergency text messages will then automatically display JeffALERT.

For phone calls, the Caller ID function on your cellular, office or home phone (if available) will display the following number: 1-866-609-8026. This is the emergency communications number for JeffALERT. For your cellular phone etc, we would suggest that you also save this number in your address book and identify it as a JeffALERT number so it automatically displays that identifier during future calls.

NOTE: In the rare event that the JeffALERT system is undergoing scheduled or unscheduled maintenance during an actual emergency notification, the number may change to one of two alternates: 1-800-330-5889, or 1-800-823-1167. We recommend that you also program these numbers into your cellular phone and associate them with JeffALERT.

The JeffALERT Emergency Notification System provides students, faculty and staff with an additional layer of security and protection in emergency response, in conjunction with our already established emergency communication methods, which include: Jefferson-wide broadcast emails, online updates via Blackboard and the Hospital Intranet, public address systems, and coordinated use of campus security and public media outlets.

YES, testing is an important part of ensuring that the system works properly and that everyone is comfortable with what to expect from the system when activated. When we test JeffALERT, you will be notified in advance of the test. The notification you receive will also indicate that the Alert is a test.

Technical FAQs

YES, you can adjust your contact information anytime by logging into either Jefferson’s Banner Web site (students) or PeopleSoft (faculty/staff) using your Campus Key and changing the settings. This information will automatically be uploaded to MIR3™’s software application within 24 hours.

Jefferson will not verify the accuracy of the contact information you enter. Please check and edit your information as necessary to ensure that Jefferson’s records are accurate and up to date.

NO. The JeffALERT system has a rigid security policy in which authorized personnel ONLY are permitted to send messages using the JeffALERT system in the case of an emergency. The JeffALERT system adheres strictly to a ZERO SPAM policy that clearly prohibits unsolicited messages.

There is no charge for the JeffALERT service from Jefferson. Depending on your wireless carrier and the plan you have, you may be charged a nominal fee (e.g. ten cents per message) to receive SMS text messages. For those with unlimited text messaging plans, there would be no additional charge.

NO. The JeffALERT system, as powered by MIR3™, uses a standard industry SMS text messaging protocol to send messages to your phone. However, your mobile phone plan will need to accept text messages to work properly.

Your contact information will be removed from the JeffALERT Emergency Notification System when there is a change in your affiliation with Jefferson (for students – graduation; for faculty/staff – change in employment status).

The JeffALERT system will automatically transfer your contact information from one service provider to the next. If your actual cellular phone number changes, you will have to update your most current number in Banner Web (students) or in PeopleSoft (faculty/staff).