City of Pittsburgh Prepares for a Severe Air Quality Incident Using Predictive Analytics Technology
PITTSBURGH, Pa. (PRWEB) April 18, 2017 -- The City of Pittsburgh was joined Monday by representatives from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and Intermedix to host an emergency preparedness resilience workshop as a part of the ONEPGH initiative, which is a partnership with 100 Resilient Cities- Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation.
The three organizations put on a daylong workshop at the university aimed at exploring how emergency response technology would work with predictive simulations to prepare the region for an air quality combined with a heat wave disaster othe magnitude of the killer Donora smog event in 1948.
“Through public engagements as part of ONEPGH, we recognize that air quality is one of the primary stressors facing the region,” said Grant Ervin, Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Pittsburgh. “In talking with emergency response professionals, some of their concerns center around the question of what happens when normal events occur simultaneously to create cascading effects that put strains on systems. What we aim to do is model a historical event, like the Donora smog, and place it in a modern context.”
The university’s model, FRED, is a simulation technology initially created to predict the dynamics of infectious disease epidemics and the interacting effects of mitigation strategies, viral evolution and personal health behavior that has since been expanded to include many non-infectious diseases, as well as social and environmental factors that affect health.
“In this scenario, we are using FRED to estimate the clinical impact of heat and smog on different demographics within our population,” said Mark Roberts, M.D., M.P.P., Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management and director of the Public Health Dynamics Laboratory at Pitt Public Health. “FRED allows us to pinpoint critical conditions and the effect of potential interventions to better educate response efforts. For example, we can use the model to predict how many instances of acute respiratory disease warranting a 911 call would occur in the context of this environmental event.”
Optima Predict, a predictive response planning and simulation solution created by Intermedix, is then able to determine the appropriate resource allocation and deployments of emergency response personnel with the information provided by the FRED model.
“Optima Predict allows the city to create a scenario for EMS response based on inputs such as personnel and resource availability, post plans and vehicle location to determine the most appropriate response based on the community needs identified by FRED in this scenario,” said Justin Schaper, senior vice president of analytics at Intermedix.
The workshop also explored the communication and coordination challenges between first responders, emergency management and critical infrastructure organizations, such as hospitals and utilities. The Intermedix incident management technology WebEOC was utilized to highlight best practices for managing similar events.
The workshop, facilitated in partnership with 100RC, hosted more than 50 public health, emergency management and air quality professionals from Western Pennsylvania.
“Using technology and professional experience together is a great way for us to model how systems interact, and we can also use different scenarios and circumstances to replicate the process in the future,” said Rebecca Kiernan, Senior Resilience Coordinator for the City of Pittsburgh.
ONEPGH is the City of Pittsburgh’s first Resilience Strategy, released in March, 2017. For more information, visit: http://www.onepgh.pittsburghpa.gov.
About the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health
The University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, founded in 1948 and now one of the top-ranked schools of public health in the United States, conducts research on public health and medical care that improves the lives of millions of people around the world. Pitt Public Health is a leader in devising new methods to prevent and treat cardiovascular diseases, HIV/AIDS, cancer and other important public health problems. For more information about Pitt Public Health, visit the school’s Web site at http://www.publichealth.pitt.edu.
About Intermedix
Intermedix is a global leader pioneering innovations in data analytics and cloud-based technology to deliver best-in-class revenue cycle management, practice management and emergency management solutions. The company supports more than 500,000 emergency preparedness and response incidents around the world and enables more than 15,000 health care providers to focus on delivering excellence in patient care. For more information, please visit http://www.intermedix.com.
About 100 Resilient Cities
100 Resilient Cities- Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation (100RC), helps cities around the world become more resilient to social, economic, and physical challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century. 100RC provides this assistance through: funding for a Chief Resilience Officer in each city who will lead the resilience efforts; resources for drafting a Resilience Strategy; access to private sector, public sector, academic, and NGO resilience tools; and membership in a global network of peer cities to share best practices and challenges.
Lisa Osborne, Intermedix Corporation, http://www.intermedix.com, +1 (407) 301-7258, [email protected]
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