KidsCare Home Health Protects Caregivers to Deliver Exceptional Pediatric Care

Supporting Healthcare Heroes on the Frontlines

For more than 20 years, Dallas-based KidsCare Home Health has been on a mission to provide exceptional pediatric nursing and therapy services to children in the comfort of their homes. With over 1,000 employees serving families across nine states, the organization’s guiding principle of C.A.R.E.—Commitment, Accountability, Results, and Ethics—drives every decision, ensuring expert care for the families they serve.

Shannon Hanberry, Regional Director of Therapy, has been part of the KidsCare family for 18 years. She says that while KidsCare is known for its outstanding pediatric care, the organization is equally committed to the well-being and safety of the nurses and therapists who make this mission possible.

Providing in-home pediatric care means staff travel frequently, often navigating disruptive events and safety risks. To keep its caregivers safe and maintain continuity of care for patients, KidsCare turned to AlertMedia’s Emergency Communication and Threat Intelligence capabilities. With AlertMedia, these healthcare heroes remain protected and connected, allowing them to focus on what they do best: changing lives, one child at a time.

Keeping Traveling Healthcare Safe and Connected Across Nine States

KidsCare’s services require therapists and nurses to drive between patient homes, often exposing them to risks such as severe weather, civil unrest, or local emergencies. “We believe therapy is most effective when carried out in a child’s home, but there are challenges to providing this kind of care,” says Hanberry. “Our clinicians are constantly on the move, which makes it hard to stay informed of potential risks.”

With over 1,000 employees working across a large portion of the U.S., KidsCare needed a way to monitor region-specific threats and rapidly communicate safety updates to employees who may be affected. KidsCare’s expansive geography—spanning regions prone to hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and snowstorms—added urgency to finding a real-time threat intelligence solution.

The organization also needed an efficient way to reach its mobile workforce via their preferred communication channels, such as text or email. “Whatever platform our staff typically use, we want to make sure they can receive and reply to messages using that platform,” says Hanberry.

Adding to the complexity, employees sometimes travel significant distances—even crossing state lines—to provide in-home care. So, location-based threats don’t always align with employees’ home addresses or regional offices. KidsCare needed a tool to deliver automatic, real-time alerts based on where employees live, work, and travel.

Improving Safety and Efficiency With Automatic Threat Warnings

KidsCare Home Health began using AlertMedia in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and was able to streamline daily employee check-ins. At the time, the platform’s survey functionality provided an efficient way to conduct wellness checks, collecting and tracking employees’ symptom reports to determine when staff were unable to provide care. This early use case proved AlertMedia’s ability to simplify communication, leading KidsCare to subsequently adopt the platform for broader emergency communication and threat intelligence as the company rapidly expanded into seven additional states.

“Before AlertMedia, managers had to text or email everyone on their team individually. It wasn’t fast, and it wasn’t efficient,” explains Hanberry. AlertMedia streamlines the process. Built-in threat intelligence monitors all the areas where KidsCare operates, sending targeted alerts to employees living or working within impacted regions. “With AlertMedia, we can immediately see who has responded and who needs follow-up,” adds Hanberry. “It’s so much better.”

Today, AlertMedia plays a vital role in KidsCare’s day-to-day operations. The team uses the platform to send automatic and customized messages informing clinicians about potential threats, disruptions, or emergencies. They also have the ability to check on employees’ safety during critical events. “Most of the time, we don’t need a specific response, but when it’s critical to know our employees are safe, we request a follow-up message from them,” says Hanberry.

AlertMedia’s intuitive interface ensures ease of use for employees and administrators alike. To maintain familiarity, KidsCare incorporates regular refreshers about using the communication system into quarterly meetings and new hire onboarding. “AlertMedia is straightforward and easy to use, but we take the time to reinforce why it’s important, what it’s for, and how it helps us maintain two-way communication,” explains Hanberry. “This ensures everyone is comfortable and confident using it when it matters most.”

Reaching Employees Where They Live, Work, and Travel

“When we need to contact our entire clinician team, AlertMedia is the best way to reach everyone,” says Hanberry. The platform’s ability to send automatic, event-specific messages gives KidsCare employees the situational awareness they need to stay safe, no matter where or when they’re working.

Hanberry says that this has been particularly valuable during recent extreme weather events. “When there was a hurricane in Houston, our regional managers lost power and couldn’t communicate with us,” she says. “But because other managers in the state also had access to all the relevant employee groups for Houston, we could still send out messages via AlertMedia.” These messages included requests for responses confirming whether employees were safe or needed additional support.

One of AlertMedia’s standout features is its ability to tailor notifications to specific regions. “Texas is a large state, so not everyone needs every notification,” says Hanberry. “With AlertMedia’s advanced mapping capabilities, we can customize the geographical region where notifications are sent, ensuring messages only go to the people who may be directly impacted.”

This precision was especially valuable during an explosion at a pool chemical company in Frisco, Texas, which triggered a shelter-in-place alert. Hanberry used AlertMedia to identify employees living in the affected area, cross-referenced this list with patients in the vicinity, and pinpointed which nurses or therapists might be working nearby. “We ended up with a very individualized list of people to alert,” says Hanberry. “It allowed us to act quickly and accurately, ensuring both employees and patients were supported.”

AlertMedia’s utility extends beyond emergencies. When specific events require targeted action, such as open enrollment reminders from HR, KidsCare uses the platform to send urgent text messages to employees. “It’s the easiest way to reach everyone quickly,” says Hanberry.

“Thanks to AlertMedia, we’re able to maintain a constant connection with over a thousand traveling nurses and therapists,” says Hanberry. AlertMedia’s integrated Threat Intelligence and Emergency Communication solution allows KidsCare to prioritize the safety and well-being of its employees while continuing to deliver life-changing pediatric care.

AlertMedia has become an essential part of KidsCare’s operations, ensuring its healthcare staff remain informed and supported even as the organization continues to grow. “As we expand into more states, AlertMedia can easily scale with us,” Hanberry shares. “No matter where our employees—or the families they support—are located, we know we can rely on the same trusted system to keep everyone informed and safe.”