Cursor on Target: Research for a Sensor Network
Greer Stevenson, Melissa Naiman, Andy Boyd, Annette L. Valenta · Online Journal of Public Health Informatics · 2012
Terrorism, epidemics, natural, and man-made disasters have increased over the last decade, prompting ongoing evaluation and incremental rebuilding of the American public health system (Chan, Killeen, Griswold, & Lenert, 2004a;Yu, Brock, Mecozzi, Tran, & Kost, 2010).In February 2002, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) identified six focus areas to generate response capacities to bioterrorism and public emergencies.According to one focus area, information sharing and alert notifications between systems and public health agencies must be continuous and automatic (Popovich, Henderson, & Stinn, 2002) Advancements in technology set the stage for this uninterrupted data-sharing requirement to be met; for example, "smart devices" can digitally record and transmit information and text messages from remote disaster sites using wireless ad hoc networks.In this context, medical systems and personnel can provide enhanced patient support from the extraction point to the hospital, even when normal landline infrastructure has been damaged.However, care may be restricted due to the limited recognition of proprietary information and the distance between the transmitter and collector system.This article suggests that overcoming these limitations necessitates the adoption of interoperability by basic operations and illustrates how an Internet Protocol called Cursor-on-Target can facilitate communication between open source and propriety systems.Interoperability is the exchange and processing of data between systems via a structured format and a common vocabulary.Disaster and emergency response support is comprised of three cyclical phases: 1) Pre-response analysis and dissemination; 2) Disaster and emergency support; 3) Post-deployment and re-initiation of the pre-response.In order to ensure rapid response and vigilance to any change in chemical, biological, natural, and/or nuclear conditions, unmanned sensors at all public health sites must send updated data around-the-clock to an Integrated Disease Surveillance System (IDSS) --a public health data repository --for analysis and dissemination (Popovich et al., 2002; see Figure 1).Information from multiple sources is required to sustain a disaster and emergency response capability.The sensor network must be supported by information feeds from all systems available to the combined public health organization.Studies have indicated that electronic automated disease reporting systems, which use extensible markup language (XML) format, are not only more efficient but also demonstrate the same accuracy as manual reporting procedures (Popovich, et al., 2002;Wurtz & Cameron, 2005).