DIGITAL PLATFORM FOR EMERGENCY RESPONSE SYSTEM
- Tapasya Nair
(April 2, 2019)
All cities and localities have various services to tackle emergencies. These emergency services are essential services for the smooth functioning of the cities and also to deal with emergencies involving one or more individuals. Emergency services are required to deal with fires, crimes, serious medical conditions, adverse weather conditions at an individual level and natural or man-made disasters, medical epidemics and adverse weather conditions at a collective level of the populace.
Typically emergency services include:
1. Fire-fighting services
2. Police
3. Medical services
4. Services to tackle weather related emergencies (in some places facing extreme cold etc.)
5. Transportation related services like tow-away vehicle to deal with accidents etc.
Response time is a critical factor in tackling any emergency. In case of fire , or a case of cardiac arrest it is imperative that the fire extinguisher or the ambulance respectively, arrives soon in order to save lives. Hence, time is of critical essence for any kind of emergency responder.
Normally, every country has its own set of phone numbers or a single phone number for each of these emergency services. The number is usually an unique number which a person can easily remember and dial in case of an emergency. The local authorities usually publicise these numbers and even educate school students so that people are aware where to seek help in case of emergencies.
While the emergency phone numbers have been in existence for a few decades and have become the norm, there may be a case for additionally putting all these emergency services on a single digital platform in case of every city. There has been a mixed experience between countries and within countries on the reponse of emergency services after receiving phone calls communicating distress and emergencies. Although all these services by their very nature are supposed to respond immediately, there may be some delays in certain cases. This may be due to the processes involved in internal communication within the organisations receiving the calls, physical distance of the location of incident from the emergency service provider etc. Thus, in case of a fire, the person receiving the call for calling a fire tender will need to be alert to find out the location of the incident while receiving the fire call and thereafter be in a position to immediately inform the concerned team to reach the location. Any miscommunication or time lag in this case would hamper rescue efforts and containment of damage.
Emergency call architecture:
Digital Platform for Emergency Services: The digital platform may be in the form of an ‘App’. The App must be an App for ‘Emergency Services’. It must have the following features:
1. It must be a comprehensive App covering all the Emergency Services for the area
2. It must be simple to use
3. It must be able to pin-point the location of the emergency caller through GPS
4. It must have a mechanism to convey alerts immediately to the Control Room of the emergency service and to the concerned team of the emergency service. (Usually the Emergency Teams would be formed on the basis of locality or geographic location)
5. It must have a mechanism for alerting multiple emergency services in case required depending on the nature of emergency
Architecture of the digital platform:
It would be worthwhile to emphasise that the digital platform for the emergency services would be a parallel platform for emergency intimation and response. Emergency reponse services by their very nature need to be able to respond to emergency calls received through multiple mediums.
The challenges which such a digital platform may encounter would be:
1. Resistance from different emergency services to transform to a common platform owing to apprehensions about reduced efficiencies, dilution of organisational role etc.
2. Apprehension by Emergency Service Reponders to the efficacy of new technologies
3. User apprehensions due to lack of knowledge and skills in the digital medium
The success of the transformation of the Emergency Services to the digital platform would depend on how these challenges are overcome through efficacy of technology that is being put into place, capacity building in organisations, educational pragrammes for the public and leadership in emergency services for moulding organisational behaviour to adopt the changes. As the platform would be an additionality and not a replacement of existing systems it would belie some of the apprehensions of the user. However, such a system would invlove additional expenditures and consequently additional budgetary allocations for these services. The additional benefits in tackling emergencies effieciently would far outweigh the additional expenditures involved.
The motto of all Emergency Services are to save lives and serve the public. Hence, inter-organisational differences are likely to be ironed out in the larger interest of the public. The Architecture of the Digital Platform for the Emergency Services suggested above would be a force multiplier in tackling these unforeseen events.
