Pinpointing What is Wrong With Cross-Agency Collaboration in Disaster Healthcare

A disaster is an event in which a hazard has a destructive environmental or ecological impact on such a scale that the effects cannot be managed within local community resources. In disaster healthcare, the main responders to provide emergency relief are usually emergency management and health personnel. Although these two sectors share the same vision of providing public health services to disaster victims, post-disaster analysis reflects poor communication between them leading to delayed, substandard and even unavailable healthcare. This paper investigates the barriers to smooth and effective communication between health and emergency management personnel in a disaster, with the aim of pinpointing possible points of improvement. The paper presents a comprehensive review of the available literature on the subject and suggests suitable interventions to enhance healthcare delivery through cross-agency collaboration and information exchange based on a projected telehealth system

Sharing Incident and Threat Information for Common Situational Understanding

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Information Systems for Disaster Management: The Impact of National Context

Disaster management systems including information systems, differ in each jurisdiction as they are dependent on cultural context, available resources and disaster typology characteristics. As a result, developing knowledge and lessons learned in disaster management, to improve systems and processes is very difficult. By better understanding why systems and processes differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction development of a body of knowledge for disaster systems and process improvement would become more achievable. To graphically highlight and learn from jurisdictional factors, we take a closer look at flood management practices (systems and processes) in China where there is a high incidence of flood disasters and significant death and damage at a far larger scale that that experienced in Australia. In China, flood preparation is based primarily on information systems predictive models to support critical hydraulic engineering decisions while response is mainly reliant on government resource allocation where the military become a key player

Using Audio-Logs for Analyzing the Development of a Common Operational Picture in Multi-agency Emergency Response

Multi-agency emergency response requires effective communication and collaboration for building and maintaining a common operational picture. Full-scale exercises are shown to be effective for learning, and for training the collaborative skills needed. This paper presents a methodology for analysis of real-time communication for building the common operational picture, using audio-logs. The analysis of the audio-logs provides insights for both practitioners and researchers in the emergency management domain concerning the dynamics of inter-agency collaboration and information exchanges when responding to emergencies. Coding and categorizing of audio-log-based information exchanges among multi-agency stakeholders were applied based on a full-scale emergency exercise on multiple terror actions. The results show that the methodology can contribute to analyze the development of a common operational picture, supplementing existing methods for evaluation of full-scale emergency exercises and real events.publishedVersio

Using Audio-Logs for Analyzing the Development of a Common Operational Picture in Multi-agency Emergency Response

Multi-agency emergency response requires effective communication and collaboration for building and maintaining a common operational picture. Full-scale exercises are shown to be effective for learning, and for training the collaborative skills needed. This paper presents a methodology for analysis of real-time communication for building the common operational picture, using audio-logs. The analysis of the audio-logs provides insights for both practitioners and researchers in the emergency management domain concerning the dynamics of inter-agency collaboration and information exchanges when responding to emergencies. Coding and categorizing of audio-log-based information exchanges among multi-agency stakeholders were applied based on a full-scale emergency exercise on multiple terror actions. The results show that the methodology can contribute to analyze the development of a common operational picture, supplementing existing methods for evaluation of full-scale emergency exercises and real events

From common operational picture to common situational understanding: An analysis based on practitioner perspectives

The concepts of Situational Awareness (SA) and Common Operational Picture (COP) are closely related and well-acknowledged to be crucial factors for effective emergency management. In multi-agency operations, such as extreme weather events, the involved first responders manage the event with different mandates, objectives, and tools which can make it challenging to build a COP. Effective collaboration requires a common situational understanding, based on knowledge about each other’s responsibilities and tasks, mutual respect and trust, as well as common communication tools for emergency communication and information sharing. This paper argues that the COP serves as a basis for deciding on further action, and thus represents a first stage in the process of establishing common situational understanding among the involved actors. The empirical basis for the study includes interviews with Norwegian emergency management stakeholders, analysis of audio-logs, and review of public documents. Based on the analysis we present a framework comprising activities and processes involved in establishing a COP as a basis for common situational understanding.publishedVersio

Design principles for conversational agents to support Emergency Management Agencies

Widespread mis- and disinformation during the COVID-19 social media “infodemic” challenge the effective response of Emergency Management Agencies (EMAs). Conversational Agents (CAs) have the potential to amplify and distribute trustworthy information from EMAs to the general public in times of uncertainty. However, the structure and responsibilities of such EMAs are different in comparison to traditional commercial organizations. Consequently, Information Systems (IS) design approaches for CAs are not directly transferable to this different type of organization. Based on semi-structured interviews with practitioners from EMAs in Germany and Australia, twelve meta-requirements and five design principles for CAs for EMAs were developed. In contrast to the traditional view of CA design, social cues should be minimized. The study provides a basis to design robust CAs for EMAs

From Common Operational Picture to Common Situational Understanding : A Framework for Information Sharing in Multi-Organizational Emergency Management

Complex emergencies such as natural disasters are increasing in frequency and scope, in all regions of the world. These emergencies have devastating impacts on people, property, and the environment. Responding to these events and reducing their impact requires that emergency management organizations (EMOs) collaborate in their operations. Complex emergencies require extraordinary efforts from EMOs and often should be handled beyond ordinary routines and structures. Such operations involving multiple stakeholders are typically characterized by inadequate information sharing, decision-making problems, limited situational awareness (SA), and lack of common situational understanding. Despite a high volume of research on these challenges, evaluations from complex disasters and large-scale exercises document that there are still several unsolved issues related to information sharing and the development of common situational understanding. Examples here include fulfillment of heterogeneous information needs, employment of different communication tools and processes with limited interoperability, and information overload resulting from a lack of mechanisms for filtering irrelevant information. Multi-organizational emergency management is an established area of research focusing on how to successfully collaborate and share information for developing common situational understanding. However, the level of complexity and situational dependencies between the involved EMOs create challenges for researchers. An important element for efficient collaboration and information sharing is building and maintaining a common operational picture (COP). Sharing important information is a key element in emergency management involving several EMOs, and both static and dynamic information must be accessible to perform tasks effectively during emergency response. To be proactive and mitigate the emergency impacts requires up-to-date information, both factual information via the COP and the ability to share interpretations and implications through using a communication system for rapid verbal negotiation. The overall research objective is to investigate how stakeholders perceive and develop SA and COP, and to explore and understand key requirements for stakeholders to develop a common situational understanding in complex multi-organizational emergency management.publishedVersio

Project report : Requirements specification

The SAMRISK project “Sharing incident and threat information for common situational understanding“ (INSITU) commenced in May 2019. The INSITU project develops solutions for establishing a common situational understanding in complex operations requiring collaboration between several agencies. This involves systematic analysis of existing information sources and defining the information elements that are critical to share in different phases of a crisis situation. In addition, the project will develop procedures and related tool support for efficient collection and integration of information. As part of this work, the project contributes to harmonisation of terminology across agencies to secure effective communication. A map-based interface for display of information from different digital map resources will be developed, as a basis for a common operational picture (COP). This solution will also support evaluation and learning from incidents and emergency exercises. Based on a review of related research, the report briefly summarises the state of the art for the areas focused in the project. Through interviews and discussions with emergency stakeholders, field observation during an exercise, and field visits at operations centres, current practice for information sharing and establishing a COP is analysed. Based on the expressed needs from the emergency stakeholders and our analysis of current practice, the report specifies a set of requirements for information sharing, harmonisation of terminology, use of common map resources, and technology support for evaluation and learning from incidents.publishedVersio

Felles situasjonsforståelse og beslutningstaking i snøskredaksjoner

Snøskredulykker rammer samfunnet flere ganger årlig. Overlevelsestiden forbundet med å bli fullstendig begravet i snøskred er svært kort. Redningsoperasjoner i miljøer der disse ulykkene skjer innebærer ofte betraktelige usikkerhets- og risikomomenter for det betydelige antallet redningsmannskap som rykker ut på slike hendelser. Som en konsekvens av disse faktorene, kreves det veloverveide beslutninger tatt på et solid grunnlag, samtidig som disse beslutningstakingsprosessene preges av et betydelig tidspress. Dette innebærer en forståelse av situasjonen, hva man står ovenfor og hvordan situasjonen kan utvikle seg. Denne studien ser på hvordan Redningstjenestens frivillige og profesjonelle redningsressurser danner og deler situasjonsforståelse, samt hvordan situasjonsforståelse påvirker beslutningstaking. Gjennom tre forskningsspørsmål vil det svares på problemstillingen: Hvilke faktorer påvirker felles situasjonsforståelse under snøskredaksjoner og hvordan leder situasjonsforståelse til beslutningstaking? Denne studien bygger på primærdata fra åtte kvalitative intervjuer innenfor den frivillige og profesjonelle Redningstjenesten, samt sekundær dokumentdata om Redningstjenestens organisering under snøskredulykker. Konklusjonen i studien viser at Redningstjenestens multi-organisatoriske oppbygning, som innebærer en blanding av frivillige og profesjonelle med ulikt utgangspunkt, utdanning og erfaring, påvirker aktørenes felles situasjonsforståelse. Som en konsekvens av ulik tilnærming til oppdragsløsning, forekommer det noen ganger uklarheter knyttet til rolleansvar og praktisk gjennomføring. Individets egenskaper i form av erfaring og kompetanse, ulike organisasjoners kjennskap til hverandres informasjonsbehov, samt begrensninger relatert til digitale informasjonsdelingsverktøy, er identifiserte faktorer som påvirker informasjonsdelingen mellom organisasjoner. En felles situasjonsforståelse danner grunnlaget for annerkjennelse av hastegrad, som igjen har igjen betydning for risikovilje og beslutningsstrategi hos utvalget