SFDEM & DATA

A Report of SFDEM’s Data Practices.

June 15, 2015

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Table of Contents This document summarizes practices, needs and possible actions regarding data within the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management.

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DEM & Data Data @ SFDEM The Possibilities

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Data & DEM In 2009, the City of San Francisco became of the first metropolitan areas to open government data to its residents.

San Francisco generates many types of data, much of it useful and usable by residents and organizations to help provide more effective services and more informed consumption.

Mayor Lee and the Chief Data Officer, Joy Bonaguro, have set goals to increase consistency, timeliness and usability of San Francisco city government data.

At the San Francisco Department Emergency Management (SFDEM), each division produces, uses and seeks data to deliver services to the residents and visitors of the City of San Francisco.

Data at SFDEM includes the following sources:

* Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD)

* Dispatch Push 2 Talk & Telephones

* EMS Regulatory Systems

* EMT Certifications

* Medical Permit/Plan Data

* Geospatial (Mapping) Data from Federal, State and Local sources (ex. Tsunami Inundation Zone)

* HAZUS (Natural Hazard Modeling System)

* DataSF.gov, Data.gov and other Government data portals

* Private Sector Data (ex. PG&E)

* WebEOC

* Digital Sandbox

* Controller’s Office Metrics

Government openness produces tremendous other benefits for our societies through increasing state or institutional responsiveness, reducing levels of corruption, building new democratic spaces for citizens, empowering local and disadvantaged voices or enhancing service delivery and effective service utilization.

- The Sunlight FoundationSource: https://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/05/05/a-new-approach-to-measuring-the-impact-of-open-data/

Data @ SFDEM

DEC & Data

DES & Data

External to DEM

Where are the gaps?

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DEC & Data

Source: User by Luis Prado from the Noun ProjectSource: San Francisco Department of Emergency Management Annual Report 2014

Data Produced

The Division of Emergency Communications (DEC) produces all Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) data for the City of San Francisco.

With over 150 dispatchers answering more than one million 9-1-1 calls each year, DEC produces vast amounts of public safety and societal data.

This data is often combined into physical reports for varying departments, such as the Department on the Status of Women, as well as consistent data feeds to public safety agencies (Police and Fire) to provide information about crime statistics and fires to the Data.SFGov portal.

Much of the data produced by DEC is directly linked to outcome data produced by its sister division, Emergency Services, by way of the EMS regulatory system.

Data Used

CAD is a rich source of data, but it becomes more rich with the use of geo-spatial mapping capabilities. Tiburon provides map data showing address blocks, unit locations and other necessary information for Dispatchers to relay to public safety responders.

Post call, CAD provided the ability to combine dispatch data with other data sources to analyze, note trends and assign resources as needed.

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DES & Data Data Produced

The Division of Emergency Services (DES) produces Emergency Medical System data, including the monitoring of all pre-hospital providers according to Policy Standard 4000 and California EMS Authority’s Core Measure Standards.

The intention of this data is to provide accurate clinical and patient care records from the receipt of the radio request from Dispatch to Hospital delivery.

In addition to EMS data, DES produces geospatial data for site locations (ex. Points of Distribution), HAZUS data for Planning processes, Controllers Metrics, Special Event/Medical Planning and Emergency Operations Center activation data with regularity.

Source: Teacher by gb from the Noun ProjectSource: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rvdbshjkak912e0/4000%20Provider%20Standards_09-01-2011.pdf?dl=0

Data Used

Emergency Services uses several types of data, including geospatial layers provided by local, state and federal sources to help document, display and plan the locations of necessary resource deployment during events and emergencies.

Additionally, DES uses medical planning information to inform EOC support, hours and capabilities.

The leading hurdle to using data better is software training, specifically ArcGIS and other display platforms. Closely following this hurdle, is access to internal DEM data and other local, state and federal data.Much of the gathered data lacks systemization and is often difficult to publish or establish precedent.

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External to DEM

Source: Community by Matthew Hall from the Noun Project

Data Produced

External departments, such as the Department of Public Health and the Public Utilities Commission, provide extensive amounts of data used by both DEC and DES. Information and locations of integral community resources and infrastructure are valuable to the duties of both Dispatch and the Emergency Operations Center.

In addition to city departments, public and privately held data is also helpful to DEM. The ability to crowdsource fuel status, debris locations and removal and community assets is vital to both short and long-term recovery.

The ability to collaborate, incorporate and publish mash-ups of DEM-owned and externally-owned data is valuable.

Data Used

Limited portions of DEM data, primarily CAD driven, are publically available through crime statistics published on DataSF.gov. While some legacy data may reside on the city open data portal, no current information is available. This limits collaboration with external data.

Geospatial and EMS data published by the department is often closed and not machine readable. Data like this is most often published in a PDF form which cannot be combined with external data sources to display, interpret or share with outside entities.

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Where are the gaps? While data itself is useful, the real power of data is in combining, visualizing and analyzing.

SFDEM has access to and creates many forms of data, from calls for service to locations of response resources. The largest gap is making those sources of data consumable, readable and usable by our internal divisions and external stakeholders.

The lack of standardization related to Emergency Medical System (EMS) data also limits the ability for system-wide accuracy and effectiveness.

Data standards, policy and practice would enable effective sharing and better understanding of department and community capabilities and needs. Defaulting to open as a standard behavior would encourage effective, accurate and safe disclosure of SFDEM data.

Data, as numbers on an spreadsheet, mean very little in an operations situation.

That same data shown on a map, in relation to business locations, supervisor districts, inundation zones and nearby infrastructure can provide the exact context for the question of evacuation versus shelter and its economic impacts.

The ability to combine, display and interpret readily available data sources is a secondary gap. While SFDEM has access to data, many of our staff lack the skills and tools to accurately tell the story the data presents.

When we know better, we make better decisions. Knowing the impact of our choices during a response can directly impact long-term community recovery.

The Possibilities

Response

Geospatial

Sharing

Credits

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In the long term, response data, whether through CAD or EMS, could provide strong societal information which could inform and change response mechanisms and protocols.

Questions like, what is the impact of extended ambulance at hospital delays, are the established treatment protocols providing effective patient care, and where can we find unrecognized efficiencies, are a few of the questions that can be answered by the analysis of DEM data and other data sources.

Proposed Actions

There are many disparate data systems within the department. Encouraging the exchange of data from DEC to DES and back by enabling common data practices, standards and priorities will be helpful to daily and disaster response.

Development of an EMS Dashboard is underway, but access to raw data used to compose the visualization is necessary to demonstrate the City’s priority to data transparency and access applies in full to all DEM entities.

Medical plans will soon be available through Project Senoia. Linking the data in approved plans to the Dispatch floor and the Operations Center will likely help inform capabilities and decisions in new ways.

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The ability to visually display data, alone or in combination with other sources, is vital to bringing people to action.

Whether it be a public information campaign, justification for budgetary requests or determining the best place to establish an individual assistance center, data visualization is the most compelling way to share San Francisco’s story.

Proposed Actions

By definition, data is simply a set of numbers. In order to share the story of emergency management those numbers must be analyzed and visualized in way consumable by the residents of San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Department wide training and software accessibility, including use of the existing enterprise-wide license for ArcGIS, is integral to sharing data, both internally and externally.

While some elements of data visualization and geospatial mapping are taking place at DEM, consistency is limited, while expectations are high. The work we do ahead of time will inform initial response actions and can have lasting impact to San Francisco’s recovery.

Source: Map Marker by Mister Pixel from the Noun Project

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The immediate and long-term coordination of response and recovery is dependent upon our ability to understand the given situation. That ability does not come without data.

In an emergency, the ability to see beyond our own known data set and into the interconnections of our community is vital to its restoration and recovery. Integration of many data sources provides a vivid picture of the community we serve.

Proposed Actions

In addition to the tactical implementation of common data practices, the development of a DEM data strategy, overseen by an inter-disciplinary and transparent working group would help to insure practices are relevant and realistic for each division.

The sheer number of data driven and data sharing operations at SFDEM is enormous. Everything from CAD and ESRI to WebEOC, Crisis Map and Project Senoia rely on internal and external data and the ability to share, combine and export anew. Linking systems, practices and capabilities within technologies and humans in vital to better immediate and long-term coordination.

Source: Awareness by Ivan Colic from the Noun Project

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Credits

Thank you to the following members of SFDEMElizabeth BessmanMike DaytonJim Di ModicaRob DudgeonBijan KarmiEdie SchafferRobert SmuttsMitch SuttonAlan TseCrystal Wright

External ResourcesThe Sunlight Foundation - sunlightfoundation.comData.SF - data.sfgov.orgData.Gov - data.govThe Noun Project - thenounproject.com