Collaborative Research: Information Technology and Emergency Response Improvisation: An Investigation

在美国，每年都有突发事件对民用和技术基础设施造成毁灭性影响，造成人员伤亡、社会经济动荡和环境破坏。由于事件都是不同的，当计划不能很好地解决情况时，第一响应者会即兴发挥，其中计划指的是详细说明规则、标准操作程序、角色和组织结构或任何商定的行动方案的文件。尽管即兴表演对应急反应很重要，但由于缺乏应急即兴表演方面的知识积累，在实践层面上，老手很难将即兴表演知识和技能传授给需要这些知识的新手。不能适当地即兴发挥会造成响应操作延迟、资源分配效率低下、操作安全保护不足以及危机信息管理不善等风险。该项目将探讨信息技术在实现和支持应急应急即兴反应方面的作用。研究组织属性和任务环境因素如何调节It支持对即兴创作的影响。预期的研究结果将指导IT供应商开发新的工具，为紧急情况的即兴发挥提供更好的支持；帮助应急响应界制定更好地利用信息技术实现临时目的的组织战略和实践。本项目将采用并扩展活动理论，这是一个经常用于描述集体行动的框架，用于紧急即兴情境-我们称之为危机应对AT （CRAT）。我们将把即兴创作的研究重点放在中高档的应急操作中心（EOC）上，在这些中心，信息技术可以发挥支持即兴创作的作用。为了收集丰富的应急即兴反应资料，pi将对应急管理人员进行访谈和焦点小组研究。pi将分析收集到的定性数据，并揭示即兴创作的主要问题，这有望更好地理解如何最好地利用IT来解决即兴创作的个别问题。此外，根据技术-组织-环境（TOE）框架，该提案将探讨可能缓和（支持或阻碍）IT对应急响应即兴的影响的重要组织和任务环境因素。一项在线调查将用于从全国各地的eoc收集数据，并检验从定性工作和理论中得出的假设。调查数据将使用先进的统计方法进行分析。最后，pi将开发和分发工具包，以帮助EOC管理人员开发和评估支持即兴创作的IT计划。该工具包将由急诊从业人员进行验证。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Each year, in the US, emergencies cast devastating impacts on the civil and technical infrastructure, resulting in loss of human life, social and economic disturbances, and environmental damage. Because incidents are all different, first responders improvise when plans do not readily address a situation, where plans refer to documents detailing rules, standard operating procedures, roles, and organizational structures or any agreed-upon courses of action. Despite the importance of improvisation to emergency response, there exists a lack of accumulated knowledge on emergency improvisation, thus at the practice level it becomes difficult to transfer improvisation knowledge and skills from veterans to novices who are in need of such knowledge. An inability to properly improvise creates risks of response operation delays, inefficient allocation of resources, insufficient protection of operational safety, and mismanagement of crisis information. This project will explore the role of information technology (IT) in enabling and supporting emergency response improvisation. It will also investigate how organizational attributes and task-environment factors moderate the effects of IT support on improvisation. Expected research findings will guide IT vendors to develop new tools that offer improved support on emergency improvisation; help the emergency response community create organizational strategies and practices that better leverage IT for improvisational purpose.This project will adopt and extend Activity Theory, a framework that is often used to describe collective actions, to the emergency improvisation context – we term this Crisis Response AT (CRAT). We will center our study of improvisation on upper to mid range Emergency Operating Centers (EOC) where IT could play a role in supporting improvisation. To collect a rich account of emergency response improvisation, the PIs will conduct interviews and focus-group studies of emergency response managers. The PIs will analyze the collected qualitative data and uncover major issues of improvisation, which are expected to result in a better understanding of how IT can be best used to address individual issues of improvisation. Following the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, in addition, the proposal will explore important organizational and task environment factors that may moderate, either support or hinder, the effect of IT on emergency response improvisation. An online survey will be used to collect data from EOCs nationwide and test hypotheses derived from the qualitative work and theory. Survey data will be analyzed using advanced statistical methods. Finally, the PIs will develop and distribute a toolkit to help EOC managers develop and evaluate IT initiatives that support improvisation. This toolkit will be validated by emergency practitioners.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.