The Greene County Health Department announced that the county has a new mobile app to provide residents of the county a variety of alerts and communication.
The mobile app is a collaboration with the Health Department and all other lead agencies in the county to keep residents more informed.
Health Department Administrator Molly Peters says the app is based off community needs: “It seems like websites are becoming less and less utilized. To kind of be on the cutting edge of newness, I guess, we decided that an app might be the way to just get information out. On Facebook, messages as you share them show up, but if they are not liked and shared a whole lot, people don’t see them. So, when there is an emergency or when there is information you really want people to hear and know, it’s really hard to just put messages out on the Facebook page. The app allows us to send out messages, and anybody that has the app downloaded on their mobile device will receive it instantly.”
Peters says it will give local law enforcement another way to communicate emergency information directly to the app’s users: “If there ever is an emergency, we are able to send out specific information about it. We are adding channels for our police chiefs and the Sheriff’s Office so that maybe if there is a road closure or some specific public safety information that people need to know, they will be able to get on the app and send that information out on their channel.”
Peters says it will work similar to a website for each organization with more mobility. Peters says the money for the app design came from an Emergency Response grant. She says that app may be a temporary feature of the county, based upon usage. She says the usage will be evaluated often to see how much it’s getting used by the public and to see if there are ways it needs to be improved or expanded.
Greene County residents can search for the app in the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store by searching for “Greene County Health Department IL” to download it for free.