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The Emergency Data eXchange Language (EDXL) is a growing suite of specific message standards developed by emergency practitioners in a project sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security’s Disaster Management E-Gov Initiative. After emergency practitioners develop detailed requirements for each needed message, and leading technology companies (through the Emergency Interoperability Consortium – EIC) are consulted, they are submitted to an official standards development body. EDXL messages are designed for IP (Internet Protocol) data communications between all emergency professions. EDXL is compatible with most existing and planned networks and data systems at the federal, state, local and tribal levels.
The goal of the EDXL project is to facilitate emergency information sharing and data exchange across the local, state, tribal, national and non-governmental organizations of different professions that provide emergency response and management services. EDXL will accomplish this goal by focusing on the standardization of specific messages (messaging interfaces) to facilitate emergency communication and coordination, particularly when more than one profession is involved.
EDXL is intended as a suite of emergency data message types including resource queries and requests, situation status, message routing instructions and the like, needed in the context of cross-disciplinary, cross-jurisdictional communications related to emergency response.
THE NEED
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is leading the nation’s resources for defense of the country against terrorist attacks and other hazards. To increase the nation’s capability to respond more effectively to all hazard incidents, there must be efficient services that enable members of the responder community to share information successfully.
Building on the success of the SAFECOM program for interoperable communication among practitioners, EDXL intends to enable agency systems to communicate using standard data messages. SAFECOM, coupled with EDXL, offer the full range of interoperability options – voice, radio, and all types of data.
COMCARE'S APPROACH
EDXL is a national effort including a diverse and representative group of local, state and federal emergency response organizations and professionals, following a multi-step process. Just as a data-focused effort targets shared data elements, the EDXL process looks for shared message needs, which are common across a broad number of organizations. The objective is to rapidly deliver implementable standard messages, in an incremental fashion, directly to emergency response agencies in the trenches, providing seamless communication and coordination supporting each particular process. The effort first addresses the most urgent needs and proceeds to subsequent message sets in a prioritized fashion. The goal is to incrementally develop and deliver standards. Priorities and requirements are created by the DM EDXL Standards Working Group (SWG) which is a formalized group of emergency response practitioners, technical experts, and industry representatives.
COMCARE worked for DHS to facilitate these groups’ participation and involvement. In particular, we have actively worked to:
- Promote the development of EDXL standards
- Encourage the use and adoption of the above standards
- Facilitate and coordinate demonstrations to showcase the standards
Suite of Public Standards
To date, EDXL is comprised of the following standards:
FROM VISION TO REALITY
By working closely with practitioners, the standards team plans to move forward by identifying the next steps in standardizing data. Meanwhile, COMCARE is planning a series of demonstrations to field test the latest version of DE and the resource messaging standards.
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