Assignment 3

Protecting First Responders

Karyl Derek Mokudai

University of Global Campus

PSAD 410

Due Date: 02 February 2021

Protecting First Responders

Introduction

Despite first responders being referred to by many as heroes, they have continued to be unrecognized on countless occasions. One of the significant issues that have continued to impose fear is the lack of necessary resources to communicate effectively among the five core disciplines. They include public safety telecommunicators (COMMS), law enforcement (LE), emergency medical services (EMS), and firefighting (FF) (White & Girard, 2012). Although there have been efforts to acquire equipment to support their work, continuous changes in technology have continued to revolutionize when disaster is managed on day-to-day events. Due to this reason, I have chosen to discuss the issue highlighting obstacles observed in information sharing concerning first responders in public safety.

Problem Statement/Research Question

This paper will therefore focus on assessing the effectiveness of current communication channels. This issue has been seriously undermined, not the entire public safety environment's complexity. To understand the clear 'picture' of the matter hand, in any incident, there is usually a 911 call, response, arrival of first responders, monitoring, and lastly having conclusive investigation or monitoring to a given event. For all these agencies to play their role as expected, there must be means following each particular incident without any unprecedented bombarding. With this in mind, the research question will be, “What are the necessary changes required to have effective communication that will be sustainable enough for first responders?” The policy's outcome will also allow continuous improvement of a communication system to focus on both the technological and social environment.

Research Analysis and Findings

By analyzing our first responders' governance, the approach of using local jurisdictions has somehow created various obstacles in communication across disciples within the same jurisdiction (e.g., local enforcement and local medical institutions) and across jurisdictional borders (e.g., state and federal agencies). The situation gets worse that despite the lack of proper means of communication system, almost half of the first responder is not well acquainted with the current procedures and policies required to observed in multi-discipline response (White & Girard, 2012). This issue is one of the many that first responders suggest and the many other barriers affecting their communication with public safety agencies and law enforcement.

Analysis of the Independent Variable

Some of the responder's feedback also suggests that most agencies operate in different systems; it becomes even more complicated when trying to communicate with one another. For example, data sharing is seemingly complex when an agency uses Excel to save its data while another agency chooses to use DOS (Palmieri, Ficco, Pardi, & Castiglione, 2016). This issue is categorized as an independent variable where each agency must develop a standardized communication system. To effectively solve this issue, policymakers should review information restriction policies that create unwanted data sharing barriers and transparency. To measure the result of this policy, it would only require a simple feedback platform that can assess how effective is standardized system is.

Analysis of Dependent Variable

Besides having an effective and standardized communication system, the second variable will develop proper communication channels between public safety agencies and other external agencies (private hospitals and businesses, nonprofit organizations, courts, and other government agencies. For instance, a right communication channel between first responders and other government agencies such as the education department, emergency management agencies, and transportation department can significantly improve how day-to-day response is carried out (Stager, 2012). Through this approach, I believe a right communication channel with the community can also ease the first responder's workload by far less and thereby improving public safety for all at large.

In summary, like how ambulance responders can effectively communicate with their emergency responder’s counterparts in hospitals, I think that poor communication can be eradicated with the right perspective. Therefore, this would mean creating policies that will embark in R&D in technological innovation that will assist each particular team of responders effectively carrying out their mandate while still using open communication channels with no department restrictions (Palmieri et al., 2016).

References

Palmieri, F., Ficco, M., Pardi, S., & Castiglione, A. (2016). A cloud-based architecture for emergency management and first responder’s localization in smart city environments. Computers & Electrical Engineering, 56, 810-830.

Stager, R. (2012). Wireless Communication: Selection & Use to Improve Team Safety. Professional Safety, 57(3), 60.

White, P. E., & Girard, N. (2012). U.S. Patent No. 8,107,457. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.