Part of the EDXL Suite of Data Standards

The EDXL Resource Message (EDXL RM) effort has created a series of messages that allow local, tribal, state, federal and non-governmental agencies, stakeholders, and systems providers to rapidly share information on incident and event management resources. The Resource Message set facilitates requests, orders, and requests for information, demobilization and tracking of all types of resources (human resources, vehicles, equipment, supplies, and facilities, as well as packages/teams composed of many of these) – and seeks to support machine to machine communication, and thus avoid multiple entries of the same information.

Resource Messaging facilitates coordination of multiple resource requests across multiple incidents or events (i.e. management of scarce resources).  The Resource Messaging standard set of seven messages has been submitted to the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee for consideration. A concurrent effort is underway to field test the draft messages to ensure validity with both practitioners and technology vendors that will be implementing the standards.

Incident and event management professionals have asked for standard data message formats that could be used to request (or respond to requests) for persons and things required in everyday emergency incidents and events.  For the purposes of the EDXL Standards process, Resource Management is defined as:

Any action to identify sources and obtain resources needed to support emergency response activities; coordinate the supply, allocation, distribution, and delivery of resources so that they arrive where and when most needed; and maintain accountability for the resources used.

THE NEED

During emergencies a wide variety of emergency professions need to communicate about resources, and currently do it by fax and phone.  Few if any requests are communicated using data messaging.  In addition, even if agencies wanted to send a data message, there is no uniform method of identifying, acquiring, allocating, and tracking resources.
The National Incident Management System (NIMS) states that resource managers need to use standardized processes and methodologies to order, identify, mobilize, dispatch, and track the resources required to support incident management activities. The EDXL Resource Messaging Standard is intended to aid emergency responders in their resource management efforts.

COMCARE'S APPROACH

The practitioner-based Standards Working Group (SWG) confirmed that Resource Messaging was a valid priority and agreed to pursue the definition of message structure.   The SWG used four scenarios to generate detailed use examples. Four subcommittees were created and each group engaged in review of resource messaging needs with respect to a specific scenario. These scenarios were taken from actual experience (2003 Southern California Cedar fire) or official planning scenarios from other DHS initiatives (e.g. SAFECOMM Statement of Requirements).  This review of use examples was done to determine if a common message structure could serve widely differing circumstances.  

The four use example subcommittees and the associated scenarios identified were:

• Fire – 2003 Southern California Cedar fire
• SAFECOM Explosion - Multi-Discipline/Multi-Jurisdiction Explosion Scenario
• Hurricane – Official DHS National Planning Scenario
• Pandemic Influenza – Official DHS National Planning Scenario

Since the key purpose of this effort is to enable cross-profession messaging, each scenario and subcommittee was designed to include participants from a broad range of emergency response practitioner organizations. They are:

• 9-1-1
• Emergency management
• EMS
• Fire
• Hospitals
• Law Enforcement
• Public Health
• Transportation

This multi-profession participation ensured that the team had perspectives from the different agencies during the development process. 

FROM VISION TO REALITY

The Resource Messaging standard set has been submitted to the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee for consideration. However, before that process can begin, there is a need to field test the standard message set to ensure validity with both practitioners and technology vendors that would be implementing the standards. These field tests are planned for the near future.

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