Info sharing for emergencies under test

Software that will allow the police and emergency services to share and update incident information more effectively is being developed by the University of Hertfordshire and Extent Software.

The software, named Collaborator, will attempt to offer instant cross-agency alerts regardless of individual IT systems, allowing all services at the scene of an incident to share information with each other immediately.

Dr Guy Saward at the University’s School of Computer Science is working with Extent Software to develop Collaborator, backed by funding won by Extent from the East of England Development Agency.

He told E-Health Insider: “Extent had previously specialised in document management and wanted to simplify this for all agencies who are contacted via 999, so that all emergency services contacted to a particular incident receive the same information at the same time. Effectively, it is a method of attempting to control and manage incidents through good quality, shared information.

“This is a new modern approach for integrating applications based on XML technologies which will allow these life-saving agencies to communicate in a more effective manner.”

The new system will allow the first user on the scene to send detailed digital messages between agencies ensuring speed, security, reliability and accountability. The sharing platform will run on a Windows application, which looks similar to Microsoft Outlook.

The user will be able to select who can view the record, and anyone authorised can add or amend the record as necessary with a full audit trail – offering plenty of opportunities to share information and collaborate.

An Extent spokesperson said: “Collaborator will import data directly avoiding errors and delays of re-keying incident data. It offers instant two-way dialogue between agencies enabling partner agencies to always work from the latest available information. In the past, government systems could not share information with one another.”

The use of XML technology enables communication of data in any format, including text, images, or media files.

It is hoped that once the system is operational, the emergency services will bring about considerable time savings, since information needs to be entered only once.

The software is being trialled over the next six months with Gloucestershire Police, where it will be used over to help share data and management incidents between the police and Highways Agency

Dr Saward added: “The key advantage of this system is it is providing a means for agencies that have different systems - but operate through the same command control number - to be able to share and monitor information about emergency incidents on the scene, in real time. The basic idea is quiet simple, but in reality getting the systems talking to each other is a teasing problem which we look forward to tackling.”

Links

Extent Software