08/25/06 - Friday
Sortie Plan
2508 – Point Loma, Data Collection – 2508
Sortie Lead - Myles Sutherland, ESRI, Tom Patterson, ESRI

The Plan– Visit a variety of sites in the Point Loma area. Make local contacts and collect simulated patient data on a variety of GPS enabled handheld devices such as; PDA, Cell phone, laptops. Transmit data to a data center via the Internet using various communication channels including – 1) Cellular Data Network, 2) Wi-Fi using the EVDO/Wi-Fi Bridge.

Data Flow using the EVDO/Wi-Fi Bridge

GPS enabled handheld w/ Wi-Fi >> Entree Wireless battery powered EVDO/Wi-Fi gateway>> Verizon EVDO Data Service >> Internet >> ESRI data center >> Internet >> ESRI Strong Angel Common Operating Picture >> Virtual Agility Strong Angel III Situational Awareness

08/25/06 Friday

Earlier this week I took the ICS/NIMS training and certification class. Today I spent the morning in the ShadowLite Command Center and observed and supported the deployment of multiple sorties to the field to collect demographic data.

The organization chart for Strong Angel / ShadowLite follow the ICS/NIMS model as follows

Strong Angel III Disaster Response Demonstration

PFO - Principle Federal Officer – Eric Rasmussen

Command – This is the facility has overall control of the Incident

IC – Incident Commander, John Gargett
. Command Staff
. . PIO – Press Information Officer, Jamie Imus

Met with Tod Williams, director of technology, Loma Linda University Medical Center and talked about ways to extend the reach of their MTV (METERV) Communications and Command Vehicle. Designed to respond to emergency and disaster situations, the MTV brings the expertise of a critical care center to patients that may be cut off from access to any hospital or medical care.

Tod has been testing a new mobile video head set that broadcasts audio and video over Wi-Fi.

The plan was to utilize the Entree Wireless Mobile Wi-Fi Gateway to extend the reach of the MTV by having Tod and team venture down the beach interviewing patients.

Click on an image here to see a very low-tech proof of a concept: turning SMS messages into news flow. With the help of people from several companies, including Mitre, 2SMS.com and Google, we've created a small demonstration of how citizen journalists could create location- and time-based data that might be useful in any number of ways.
The idea, in this case, was part of a scenario involving a major disaster. We assumed people would be telling each other what was happening in their communities and neighborhoods, and that if they could post such information straight into maps they'd have better information to work with.

0823 0930 – Wednesday

Met with Linda Branagan, Director of Research, MedWeb, to talk about the day’s scenario.

MedWeb is the industry standard for distributed telemedicine solutions and the delivery of Web-enabled, secure Tele-radiology and Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS).

They have developed a medical response vehicle with a fully equipped mobile communication center that supports a variety of communication networks including satellite, 3G EVDO data and Wi-Fi.

Today MedWeb is planning a sortie to the mission beach lifeguard station to investigate reports of a number of people with flu like symptoms and identify potential patients that are part of the Asian Flu Pandemic.

I've been in San Diego this week at something called Strong Angel III, a project/demonstration/exercise designed to improve responses to emergencies and catastrophes, both those which are natural and caused by humans. Several hundred smart folks looking at technology and its applications in this kind of situation, and as with the last Strong Angel exercise (which took place two years ago on a lava bed in Hawaii), this one is proving immensely educational.