Disaster Management eGov Initiative DM

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Disaster Management eGov Initiative (DM)

• XML 2004
• November 18, 2004

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Program History Mission

• One of the 24 eGov initiatives established by the
  Presidents Management Agenda
• Supports a multitude of Federal Agency missions
  including DHS and FEMA missions to reduce the
  loss of life and property in any phase of a
  disaster event
• Supports the Federal mission to provide the
  Nation a comprehensive, risk-based emergency
  management program
• Recipient of multiple awards

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Program Components - Three Pillars

• Portal to information and services
  (www.DisasterHelp.Gov)
• Disaster Management Interoperability Services
  (DMIS)
• Data exchange standards Creating information
  sharing capabilities between disparate incident
  management software

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Portal to Information and Services
32,639 Registered Users
3,620 Collaboration Centers
Emergency Management Community
Public

• Aggregated disaster-related
• information and services
• Federal agencies
• Non-governmental organizations
• Preparedness recovery services

• Secure
• Authentication driven
• Permission based
• 128 bit encryption
• Multiple tools resources
• Collaboration channel
• Custom tools
• Document repository

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Data standards for incident management software

• Bridging the interoperable divide between
  emergency management software
• Problem
• Emergency incident management software is
• Non-standard
• Multi-protocol
• Not interoperable
• Stand-alone
• Approach
• Facilitate the development of public standards
  for exchanging emergency information
• Iterative (spiral) development
• Rapid path to initial deployment
• Flexible processes and stream-lined operating
  environment

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Data standards for incident management software

• Methodology
• Four major parallel activities guide standards
  facilitation
• Identification of Requirements Formal
  stakeholder input process
• Iterative draft specification documents using
  working groups
• Prototyping, Testing, and Evaluation in
  partnership with the
• Emergency Interoperability Consortium (EIC)
• Formalization Standards submitted to
  appropriate standards body for in-depth technical
  review and formalization

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Data standards for incident management software

• Current Status
• Common Alert Protocol (CAP) (March 04)
• First stakeholder meetings (June 04) (November
  04) to gather functional requirements
• Facilitate meetings with multiple emergency
  organizations to develop drafts
• Facilitation of the next standard in development
  (message wrapper) field trials review by EIC
  submission to OASIS
• Ongoing coordination
• Future Steps
• More field trials support for OASIS Emergency TC
• Facilitate development of additional standards
• Assure integration with National Incident
  Management System (NIMS)

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Incident Management Standards Process Flow
Stakeholders identify, prioritize, and recommend
standards for development
Approved standards will be incorporated into
DMIS and vendor products
DHS/FEMA coordination activities
Recognized standards making body(s) will publish
standards
DM facilitates development of draft standards,
trials with safety groups, private industry
Recognized standards making body(s) will
review and approve standards
Present draft standard to recognized standards
making body(s)
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Process Specifics

• Encourage cooperation between emergency
  organizations standards initiatives
• Compile and assimilate input received from the
  various constituents
• Develop a family of standard formats for
  emergency information sharing among the
  professions
• Submit these to multiple trials
• Submit these to appropriate standards bodies

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Program Cooperation

• Many interoperability programs underway with
  which our work is complementary
• In DC area alone there are (among many)
• CapWIN
• Maryland Interoperability Initiative
• VHHA, NVHA Information Management Systems
• DC SHIELD Program
• DC Wireless Network
• Health Alert Networks

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Emergency Interoperability Consortium (EIC)

• Matt Walton

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What We Know AlreadyWhy form the EIC?

• Agencies want to have the ability to share data
  with others, using their own existing
  communications sharing tools
• Different agencies and jurisdictions will
  purchase different systems. These different
  systems must be able to talk to one another.
• Most emergency responders trained on voice, not
  data
• Silos predominate
• Essential that we are able to connect new tools
  and legacy systems
• Multi-use, multi-user drives down costs

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Public/Private Partnership

• Launched in October 2002
• To address our nation's lack of consistent
  technical interoperability and standards for
  emergency and incident management.
• Comprised of public agencies, non-profit
  organizations, and private companies
• Promoting the development and adoption of
  standards for using Web services, Extensible
  Markup Language (XML), and existing relevant
  standards that will enable industry
  interoperability.

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Principle

• Our organization was founded on the principle
  that the vendor community should come together
  with the user community and help create a smart
  and efficient means of interoperability among the
  many different emergency applications in use
  today.

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Primary Objectives

• Create a national approach for data
  interoperability
• Promote development of XML interoperability
  standards support exchange of incident
  information
• Ensure every American has appropriate access to
  information they require when and how they need
  it

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What we Mean By Interoperability(Not just voice)

• Voice communications is essential
• But as an incident becomes larger and involves
  more agencies
• Level of complexity requires other efficient
  means of communications.
• Data sharing provides the redundancy and
  efficiency
• The key is developing and using common data
  standards to share information.
• We have been working with other leading national
  organizations to develop a common Emergency Data
  Exchange Language (EDXL).

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Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL)

• Art Botterell