Implications of Time-Critical Information Services on Emergency Response ITS Architecture: Scenario-Building and Market Package Analysis

Previous emergency medical services (EMS) research has established a foundation for conceptual and empirically based tools that improve the scientific understanding of the interaction between information and organizational systems. Recent research has introduced the time-critical aspect into the delivery of EMS by examining end-to-end performance through a chain of dispatchers and responders. Within the United States, work is currently underway at a national level to develop the next generation of 9-1-1 services that integrate voice, data, and video. However, there still exists a challenge in that no single organization is responsible for managing end-to-end system performance. Knowledge of the performance across the system will benefit stakeholders and organizational elements responsible for facilitating service level agreements between the service providers. Based upon an examination of the Intelligent Transportation Systems architecture and the Next Generation 9-1-1 Concept of Operations documents, the authors provide recommendations for integrating performance metrics into emergency response architecture.