System will speed collection of information during an emergency.
By Steve Towns, Editor - April 2002

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are acquiring mobile technology designed to improve data collection during bioterrorism attacks.

CDC emergency response teams will use rugged handheld computers with embedded GPS receivers to capture data more quickly and pinpoint the locations where samples are collected. The technology automatically bar codes, time stamps and location marks field samples using GPS map coordinates. Data is then synchronized to a host database that logs critical attributes of the evidence.

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CDC expects the mobile technology to vastly improve the accuracy of evidence collected at emergency sites by eliminating much of the manual data input performed by field crews.

“Being prepared for rapid response to bioterrorism is a national imperative and demands that we make the best use of our available technology resources today,” said Charles Stokes, president and CEO of the CDC Foundation. “The ability to capture, analyze and track information from remote locations is an important step in upgrading the CDC’s ability to respond rapidly to health and security threats.”

The CDC Foundation created an emergency preparedness fund shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks designed to quickly raise funds for crisis-response projects. The fund received a $3.9-million pledge from Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus in April, and the new mobile data collection and mapping system is the first project financed by those resources.

“We cannot wait out the normal federal funding channels to make sure the CDC has the equipment and technologies it needs to deal with the next emergency,” Marcus said, when announcing the pledge from his Marcus Foundation.

The new system uses handheld computers from Symbol Technologies equipped with LinksPoint GPS receivers and software applications. Similar technology was used for evidence collection by New York City firefighters at the World Trade Center site.

Steve Towns, Editor