In our latest Rapid Resilience Briefing, James Burr, discusses the surge in antisemitic violence in Europe.
Full transcript
[00:05.0]
Hello everyone. Thank you for joining. My name is James Burr and I’m the Senior Regional Analyst for Europe Caucuses and Central Asia. I want to give you a quick briefing on an ongoing security risk, rising antisemitic violence across Europe with a focus on the recent attack outside the synagogue to the north of Manchester in the UK.
[00:24.6]
On October 2 during Yom Kippur A car ramming and stabbing outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation killed two worshippers and injured several others. This was the most severe antisemitic attack in Europe so far this year, and authorities immediately labeled it an act of terrorism.
[00:42.9]
The timing on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar underscored the deliberate symbolic nature of the violence. But this isn’t an isolated event. Since the onset of the Gaza war in 2023, we’ve seen a surge in antisemitic violence, vandalism and intimidation across Europe.
[01:00.0]
And this trend has continued as we approach the second anniversary of that conflict erupting. In the UK alone, there are about 1,500 incidents recorded in just the first half of this year, an extremely high figure. France and Germany are also seeing similar patterns with attacks on synagogues, schools, Jewish leaders and cultural sites being reported this year.
[01:20.7]
Even smaller Jewish communities like those in Switzerland are being targeted. So why does this matter now? The Manchester attack highlights how antisemitic sentiments are manifested in acts of targeted violence. It also raises the risk of copycat incidents, particularly around Jewish holidays, or at high profile institutions.
[01:42.2]
Security services are responding with stronger patrols, but the overall threat environment remains elevated and geographically dispersed across much of Europe. For businesses or institutions directly impacted by these antisemitic attacks on their premises or in the vicinity, there are several implications.
[02:01.8]
Operations may be disrupted by lockdowns and road closures near attack sites. There are also knock on effects for supply chains, corporate travel security, insurance costs and even legal liability if firms fail to meet duty of care obligations.
[02:18.4]
Looking ahead, we assess with moderate to high confidence that antisemitic violence will stay elevated across Europe into 2026, with spikes during Jewish holidays and at moments of geopolitical tension. So what can organizations do? A few key resilience measures include upgrading site security, running vehicle ramming and active attacker drills, using real-time intelligence and alerting systems, and strengthening communication plans.
[02:47.5]
Partnerships with local law enforcement and geo security organizations are also critical, as are reviews of insurance and legal protections. In short, this is a sustained and regional trend that businesses and communities alike are encouraged to prepare for, not just an isolated crisis.
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Streamlining Stroke Notifications and Improving Patient Care
Always seeking better
Even though Intermountain Healthcare was already a leader in telehealth response time for stroke victims, they knew they could further reduce the time required to connect neurologists with patients in need. With xMatters, they could streamline their notification processes, reduce the operational pain of reaching doctors over long distances, and provide patients with the best possible care even faster than before.
During a stroke, a patient loses 32,000 brain cells per second; that is 1.9 million a minute. So when doctors say every minute counts, they mean it. In 2019, using telehealth technology, Intermountain Healthcare physicians can assess patients at 17 of the system’s 22 hospitals using cameras and television screens in Emergency Department patient rooms. The backbone of a successful stroke telehealth program is the availability of dedicated neurologists, and a reliable process to notify them of a requested consult. Intermountain Healthcare’s IT Service Management team helped to translate complex neurologist on-call schedules and escalation protocols into the xMatters system which provides reliable notification to the neurologists when a patient needs an emergent stroke evaluation.
Highlights
- 40% reduction in time spent notifying neurologists
- Notifications to on-call physicians regardless of physical location
- Complex escalations enabled with dynamic on-call scheduling accelerate change management
Challenges
During the first months of the stroke program’s implementation, Intermountain Healthcare discovered that the traditional paging technology was unreliable for reaching doctors over long distances and did not provide adequate reception in remote mountain locations. Transfer specialists had no way of knowing whether their messages had been received or whether to resend messages. This resulted in increased wait times for patients suffering from a stroke.
The neurologists used dynamic on-call schedules, so specialists at the transfer center didn’t have an accurate schedule they could quickly refer to. The lack of automation with a complex escalation process was hampering the efforts of transfer specialists. They had to set timers and manually watch the clocks to make sure they were moving patients along at an acceptable rate while working other calls.
“We had difficult and varied escalation protocols,” explains Kristi Hinckley, Transfer Center Supervisor for Intermountain Healthcare. “The initial algorithm was complicated and drawn-out.”
“By implementing xMatters in our notification workflow, we’ve been able to quickly and reliably engage our physicians, which leads to faster evaluation and treatment for our acute stroke patients.”
-Katherine Repko, TeleHealth Operations Initiatives Manager
Solution
The previous communication solution hampered the ability to provide patients with the urgent stroke evaluation they needed. Now, with xMatters service reliability platform, neurologists receive timely notifications regardless of their mobile provider, even if one of their communication technologies is down. With more reliable messaging, Intermountain Healthcare physicians rarely escalate to other devices anymore and IT support teams have less management overhead.
IT Service Management also helped administrative assistants set up dynamic on-call schedules inside xMatters with the intuitive visual scheduling tool. They can input a neurologist’s calendar and rotation schedule in advance, modifying them as needed. xMatters uses rules to notify different physician groups depending on the time of day, so admins create the monthly on-call schedules once and the system determines which groups to notify.
Each physician may also carry multiple devices that can receive notifications. The xMatters system automatically notifies the right device according to on-call and escalation schedules, as well as individual physician preferences.
“xMatters integrates with our enterprise authentication and messaging strategies,” says Will Young, IT Service Management Process Owner for Intermountain Healthcare. “Multiple processes use xMatters to deliver messages reliably, without impacting the performance of the other processes. Intermountain IT Service Management and our xMatters partners proudly support the Intermountain Stroke team in our company’s mission of helping people live the healthiest lives possible.”
“The Intermountain stroke request process is quick and efficient every time because it’s simplified and to the point. This is because of our dedicated 24/7 neurologists, a great Transfer Center team, and the programming capabilities of xMatters.”
-Kristi Hinckley, Transfer Center Supervisor
Benefits
Intermountain Healthcare was already a leader in telehealth response time for stroke victims. Their five-minute mean time to first response was far below the national average. But with the new notification service in place, Intermountain Healthcare has reduced the overall time to connect the on-call neurologist to the requesting emergency doctors to less than three minutes from the time of the initial request.
Today, Transfer Center specialists notify neurologists of a stroke consultation request with a standardized, automated escalation process to ensure notification to the on-call physicians and backup doctors.
The streamlined process provides reliable, targeted notifications to on-call neurologists. It also provides the ability to send notifications to the entire group, then escalates them to specific physicians based on time of day and physician schedule.
“By implementing xMatters in our notification workflow, we’ve been able to quickly and reliably engage our physicians, which leads to faster evaluation and treatment for our acute stroke patients,” notes Katherine Repko, TeleHealth Operations Initiatives Manager.
Transfer specialists no longer have to wonder if their notifications were delivered. Now they can validate delivery and troubleshoot any notification issues. Each doctor’s response comes with a timestamp for a permanent record.
“The Intermountain stroke request process is quick and efficient every time because it’s simplified and to the point,” Hinckley says. “This is because of our dedicated 24/7 neurologists, a great Transfer Center team, and the programming capabilities of xMatters.” “The technical changes we’ve made with xMatters have been a real benefit for us, but more importantly for our patients,” Young agrees. “It’s all about our patients.”
About xMatters
xMatters, an Everbridge Company, is a service reliability platform that helps DevOps, SREs, and operations teams automate workflows, ensure infrastructure and applications are always working, and rapidly deliver products at scale. Our code-free workflow builder, adaptive approach to incident management, and real-time performance analytics all support a single goal: the happiness of your customers.
With Everbridge Assist’s support, this biopharmaceutical company was able to provide an exceptional level of care for their employee that ensured her wellbeing in the safest, fastest and most efficient way possible, in the face of a myriad of challenges.
