SAN JOSE, Calif.–Christopher Russo, Deputy Fire Chief of Hull, Massachusetts, told an audience at Ericsson’s Business Innovation Forum that emergency response systems needed a huge technological boost in order to increase their efficiency.
“Emergency response for emergency responders is broken,” he said adding, “we’re still using antiquated response tools.”
Russo said that while people were becoming more and more comfortable with using advanced smartphones, the emergency services were doing hardly anything to bring themselves up to date on the technological front, which was a loss for the system.
“We could really minimize the risks to people if we just give them the tools and share the information with them in real time,” he said, noting that basic apps could help a great deal in times of emergency.
Russo gave an example of mobile maps pointing people to optimal escape routes from a building or city in an emergency, or GPS to allow someone to share their location with emergency responders quickly and accurately. Even simple features on phones that are capable of sending out a signal to say “here I am, I’m ok” in cases of an emergencies, he said would be an improvement.
Being able to update people on disasters in real-time was crucial, said Russo, noting that much better use of social media needed to be made in times of emergency.
“Emergencies are immediate and require more immediate tools,” he explained.
Russo also presented his idea of a fix to the problem, Elerts, a mobile platform which provides mobile applications for real time, reliable emergency notifications, which gets responses and urgent information to people and organizations in need.
