Improvement of Emergency Situation Management through an Integrated System Using Mobile Alerts

Abstract

The capacity to act as quickly as possible in the event of an emergency is a major concern for all those involved in providing first aid. Responses in due time are crucial for efficient alarm and event management. Currently, in most systems, notifications regarding alarms and events are sent to a list of recipients. The recipients can be operators, workstations, and/or formations. For a more effective response, it would be advantageous for an alarm or event to be announced to the operators, workstations, and/or the mobile formations closest to the location where the alarm or event occurred. The authors present an innovative solution—an integrated system consisting of a mobile application intended for users and a web application for dispatchers—which aims to reduce the response time and to facilitate the identification of the emergency situation. The proposed applications are validated through usability tests, the results of which demonstrate the ease of use and acceptance of the application by users and dispatchers. It is shown that this tool can have benefits at a large scale, but depends on the involvement of governmental decision-makers for implementation.