The WebEOC CBAC board allows either DHB Emergency Operation Centres or individual CBAC Managers if they are on the internet to record key details of any CBAC established. Whilst a lot of this data is emergency management related there is a field of data that is flagged as public information.
These input displays build into a comprehensive list of Active and Planned CBACs. Those that are active are shown as Green, regardless of their opening times whilst those that have not yet been activated are shown as Red. That allows a DHB such as South Canterbury in the example below to pre-populate planned CBAC locations ahead of time.
The public information is only extracted from the WebEOC Database once a CBAC becomes active. This data, together with its location is overlayed on a public website using the Google Map API.
The webpage itself has got some great features including a type ahead address bar and the ability to show which CBACs are actually open and closed based on the time of day and their opening hours that were entered into WebEOC.
Because it uses a standard Google Map interface it should be familiar to most users and the board also supports a static html page to ensure accessibility for all website users. This website can obviously be linked to from any other agency such as a local DHB or Public Health Unit but can also be used to provide real-time data to other sectors.
The other substantial benefit is that it demonstrates another approach to sharing emergency management data in a GIS mapping format. Whilst the Emergeo GIS plug in we've got is great the user interface on the browser is a little clunky and some of the features such as the ability to turn on and off any GIS layer are beyond what 95% of users need.
The underlying code behind this board could easily be adapted to provide a google maps API based website that shows say Hospital Status reports graphically. I think the advantage of this approach over dedicated GIS Browsers is that the user interface, being google map based, is much more familiar to end users. It also frees up some of the considerable computing resources that would be required to generate a browser environment for hundreds of users.
Just imagine this functionality on a local communities 'Current Civil Defence Emergencies' page but being used to show real time status of Evacuation Reception Centres, road closures or even hazards such as flooding or bush fire.
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Congratulations guys! This looks like a really significant step forward for WebEOC. Well done.
ReplyDeleteJust to add to the above comment, i thought that it might be nice just to add a little bit of technical jargon to how the page actually is displayed and created.
ReplyDeleteBasically each CBAC is created by the DHB’s within a WebEOC board, it contains internal and external information including CBAC name, parent organisation, public phone number, opening hours, comments and a geocoded address. The address is entered into the board and then gecoded via AJAX (from the board) to the Critchlow Geostan webservice, allowing us to capture coordinates and an exact address and stored against the CBAC entry.
Each CBAC entry also has a flag stating whether it is going to be available to the public or not, which is currently only accessible from the level 5 managers (Incident Controllers, Response Managers, EOC managers etc).
Once an entry has been entered and the flag has been changed to available for the public it is then made available in a filtered display that is only accessible for the WebEOC API user.
From the webpage we access WebEOC via the webservice API to load all the ‘available’ records out of the above board. We only do this at 20 minute intervals (on page load) so that WebEOC is put under extra heavy load from the public once Swine Flu starts to put strain on the health sector. On calling WebEOC it:
• Writes a KML file which is then overlaid over Google Maps, meaning all users will be familiar with the usability.
• Create a list of cities that are currently holding CBACs from the data pulled through the API and stored in the server cache.
• Writes a plain HTML page that is also accessible for users with no javascript ability.
Users can then either choose a city or type an address into the auto complete called eSAM (which then I lookup the postcode from the geocoded address), then I follow this with an AJAX call back to the server with the postcode of the geocoded address or city postcode (from WebEOC). Back at the server I do a lookup in SQL server to find all adjacent postcodes to the submitted one. Then I pull from WebEOC (or the cache depending on the time interval) all CBAC postcodes and see it any postcodes match-up. If they do I create the table HTML and supply back to the javascript function to display on the page and zoom on the map to the appropriate location.
All of this allows all WebEOC users across the Health Sector to easily make CBAC (Flu Centre) information instantly (well almost… up to a 20 minute delay) to the public, and the ability to dynamically change this page from their WebEOC records.
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