Maturity levels of information technologies in emergency response organizations

Abstract

In emergency response organizations with very limited resources, information technologies are not adequately explored. In such organizations, the simple adoption of new information technologies is not productive, as their efficient use depends on many other interrelated technologies. This work describes a model to help understanding these interrelationships. The model allows the cooperative evaluation of an organization through different perspectives. The model also helps the performing of the evaluation from different perspectives, making it suitable to collaborative evaluation. Using the model, an organization can measure its maturity level and guide the investment in emergency response capabilities. The information technology dimension of the model has been applied to the firefight organization in Brazil. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.