The task of ensuring public safety is championed by many different public safety and first responder groups. Natural and man-made disasters often involve all levels of government working together to bring about successful resolutions. SARS, the 2003 BC fires, Hurricane Juan and the 1997 Red River flood illustrate the large and multi-jurisdictional nature of these crises. Collaboration among many different public safety and first responder groups in these types of events is essential. In the midst of any unfolding disaster, one thing is clear – the need for accurate and immediate data.

Public safety officials and first responders often make split-second decisions in an attempt to protect the public from potentially life threatening events. However, each group typically only has immediate access to their own incident scene information. Data that trickles in from other sources by telephone and fax is frequently out-dated by the time it arrives and can not be easily assimilated. The inability to examine all relevant event scene data can impede officials’ ability to make the best decisions possible. Real-time data supports strong decision making.

While many groups agree that having access to real-time data is essential – the problem lies in the ability to speak each other’s technical language. Interoperability is the cornerstone to collaboration. While many responder groups use similar terminology and business processes, the unfortunate reality is that many of these groups can not share data in any functional manner.

Interoperability ensures that disaster personnel can communicate and coordinate response actions with one another regardless of agency or department affiliation. As referenced by the graphic, the importance of interoperability increases dramatically as the potential danger of the event and numbers of potential victims increase (i.e., mass terrorism and infectious diseases).

Interoperability is needed to consolidated integrated real-time data to rapidly answer inquiries, provide assistance, and support case management and effective decision making. In addition to the obvious benefits of sharing data across agencies in an emergency, such actions can in fact increase public confidence as well. The community looks to public safety and first responder organizations to provide strength in times of uncertainty. Public confidence in times of disaster is often one of the most critical, yet underrated aspects of disaster response. Multi-jurisdictional coordination instills public confidence in the overall incident response and agency management.

AMITA provides public safety and first responder organizations with technology to optimize methods/processes/models in their all-hazards and terrorist response & resource management. AMITA helps public safety organizations develop and customize their systems architecture to utilize real-time information and share the benefits of interoperability. AMITA’s architecture is robust, handles large volumes and is easy to support.

Since 1985, AMITA has brought award winning software development to its clients for 7/24/365 mission critical operations. From case management to crisis management solutions, AMITA enables clients to handle crises more effectively and efficiently. In 2000, AMITA became one of the first corporations in North America to be certified to the new ISO 9001:2000 quality standard.

• AMITA provides experienced crisis management technology experience to assist and partner with your IT department to design and develop complete systems architecture to support a 7/24/365 day public safety and crisis operation.
• AMITA will help your organization develop a risk mitigation plan, threat and risk assessment and a privacy impact assessment.
• AMITA will assist your IT department in the design and development of custom case management, advisory warning applications, citizen registration applications, call centre case management applications that can be based on AMITA’s existing systems that will enable the organization to implement faster.
• AMITA will provide business expertise to help organizations transition to a more modern emergency services model with experience from the first responders’ community, case management systems experts, and technology experts.

For more information, please do not hesitate to contact Randy Wong at (613)742-6482 or by email at randyw@amita.com