The registry will not replace the state’s emergency medical dispatch protocols, but give first responders additional information about the victim in an emergency, said Terry Whitham, Delaware’s 911 administrator. “If the person calls and we have physical contact with them, then a dispatcher is going to follow their [dispatch] protocols,” he said. “What this is intended to do is when we have third-party calls on somebody or they may be unconscious, we do have somewhat basic information on the folks.”
For each household with a registered resident, an icon appears on a dispatcher’s map indicating the additional information. That information is shared with dispatchers at each of the state’s nine public safety answering points as well as with state and local emergency managers. That shared mapping data provides a level of redundancy and increased situational awareness for call-takers if operations from call center must fall to another or a call-taker in Kent County takes a call in the lower part of Newcastle County.
Emergency managers will be able to use information from the registry to conduct advance planning for disasters. Whitham pointed to a number of nursing home patients who drowned in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina because the facilities were not evacuated. Delaware sits on a peninsula that can experience severe storms. The registry and accompanying map layers would help emergency managers see where residents with special needs reside and what equipment may be required to evacuate them from an area, Whitham said. “We can actually plan how many specialized buses we’re going to need with wheelchair ramps, etc.,” he said. “The emergency managers would have a database that they could call from to assist them in advance planning for transportation needs.”
Whitham’s next step is to meet with emergency managers, show them the registry and get their input.
In addition to being available online, the state’s Department of Safety and Homeland Security is designing a form to collect registrations during health fairs and home visits from people who may not have access to the Internet.
Once a week, a GIS administrator adds the new information from the registry to the state’s 911 mapping application. To ensure that the information is secure, the two applications are separate with several firewalls surrounding the registry.
The registry grew out of a two-year effort to update the state’s emergency services function planning and was a collaborative effort that included public health and social services officials, emergency medical service providers and the state’s Developmental Disabilities Council. Developing the registry cost an estimated $35,000 in state E-911 Board funds and federal emergency management grant money.
