Find the Status of friends / family in an Emergency situation
The Problem
As seen in the 911 disaster, individuals were taken to a number of hospitals,
trauma centers, relief stations, etc. Frantic families/friends of victims
had to call dozens of locations seeing information, overloading hospital
telephone lines and hospital workers trying to focus on the emergency
itself.
Most agencies have wonderful systems for matching up victims and their
families aided by their own organization (i.e. the Red Cross Family Welfare Inquiry system); but, that's part of the problem. Every hospital, agency,
organization, etc. can match up families of victims of people
that it is aiding. What the people of the country are demanding
however, is a system that tells them which agency, shelter, hospital, etc. is helping their
family member.
We understand the confidentiality issues. We built a system that does not
need to access the databases of any agency or organization. It requires
as little from them as entering a last name and home telephone number, and
optionally a short message from the victim. Much less time consuming than
answering thousands of telephone calls from anxious families.
The Solution
IM_OK_UR_OK provides a means of reporting/obtaining the status of
individuals during an emergency or disaster. During "the fog of crisis" of
such times, loved ones and others around the world are anxious to learn the
status of persons in the affected area. Telephone contact, including cell
phone access is often overloaded or not available. Primary responders are
concerned with evacuation, rescue and recovery operations and cannot
track each individuals status or location.
IM_OK_UR_OK allows a means for hospitals, relief agencies, law enforcement, fire/rescue, coroners,
Community Emergency Preparedness Coordinators and others to input key
identification and status information about affected persons that can then be
accessed by friends and relatives. Rather than answering a myraid of
telephone calls about the status of victims, many of whom may have been
transferred to other locations, hospitals can post information about
arriving patients such that they can quickly and easily be located by
interested, family, friends, co-workers.
In an emergency in your neighborhood, your Community Emergency Preparedness Coordinator
or their designee will take a headcount at the designated assembly area. At that time you can choose to have the coordinator pass on the location/status of
you and your family to the system so that family members and friends around
the world will know that you (and your family) are ok.
Relief station/shelter personnel can post information about individuals
arriving at their facility that want those concerned about them to be notified. Individuals reaching other safe locations
can contact Community Emergency Preparedness Coordinators in that area
to have their information input into the system.
Family members and others can access the system directly, supplying any
combination of known information (i.e. telephone number, last name, etc.)
to search the database for the status of the person they seek. Each
person found in the system can save dozens of Emergency organizations
hundreds of telephone calls by worried families so that they can focus their
attention on directly aiding victims.
If a search of the database is unsuccessful for the person begin sought,
the searcher can issue a "WATCH". A watch will continue to monitor
new entries into the database. Should an entry be made with criteria
matching that input for the WATCH, the system will automatically
notify the person setting the WATCH via email, and optionally send a message to
their text messaging capable pager or cell phone.
WATCH records also contain more information about potential victims, and
you may upload a photo of the person being sought. The
records can be accessed by hospitals, aid stations, etc., who can be aided
in the identification and/or treatment of individuals with this extra
information. The information include distinguishing features, marks, scars, etc., and important medical information such as pre-existing medical conditions
an/or medications currently being taken, either of which can be important
when making treatment decisions.
WATCHes remain effective for a period of 2 weeks (14 days) after which they are
automatically deleted from the system.
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Organizing
the
Chaos
There were over 5000 victims of the September 11 tragedy, yet only a few
hundred people went to hospitals. Still, there was chaos. Anxious friends
and family members wanted... needed to know if their loved ones were safe;
what hospital they might have been taken to.
But there were 20,000 or more family members or friends of the victims.
All were calling every hospital, tying up cellular and regular
telephone lines, which were also needed by emergency workers, and
overwhelming the staffs of hospitals that may have only received a few
dozen victims.
By providing a mechanism where victims, or even those simply displaced by
an emergency, can register with hospitals, aid stations, shelters, etc.,
their families can know their whereabouts and condition, and thus
helping to limit telephone traffic, and workloads on already burdened
emergency workers.
By posting WATCHES in the system with key identification and medical information for
persons they are seeking but are not yet in the database, they can be
immediately informed by email, cell phone, pager, etc. if a person is
located that matches the information given. Equally importantly, it gives
medical personnel key information that may help them to identify and/or
treat persons who are located.
Chaos is a factor in every emergency situation; minimizing it is a
function of preparation, organization, coordination, and communications.
EMCOM's IM_OK_UR_OK system seeks to aid in that effort.
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