Davis County Emergency Manager Ember Herrick has been piloting a new technology that would provide real time information out to people in the field and residents during a disaster. It also has applications for disseminating information between cities and the county. 

“OP System AiBL is designed to Improve on overall efficiency in the county’s emergency preparedness office, establish and communicate Best Practices for all emergencies and collect data which will benefit county processes and programs as well as all county residents in the future – all in an effort to improve and perfect Davis County EMS practices,” said Doug Jardine, Corporate Media and Communications Manager. “It’s OP (not app). OP stands for Optimal Process.”

It’s to help business organizations be more efficient, said Founder and CEO, Afu Taumoepeau. “You can send a PDF with words or diagrams, email and follow along to get something done. You put it in the software program that makes it more robust to create an interactive document. The friction is removed.”

The focus is on the process rather than what the document might be, he said. “It provides a dynamic form to allow you to click through the next step and track and capture data as you’re going through it in real time.”

Ember saw the vision, said Taumoepeau. “She wanted to take advantage of the tool to create these OPs to use in the field to be more proactive in an emergency situation. It can also be used to communicate with cities to provide relief work in the field rather than using a document.”

“It was a local company that was looking for the county to use a pilot program,” said Herrick. “They take a static document that becomes a living document that you can modify. I heard the presentation and thought it would be good for Davis County. I could see the potential for it to be a good fit.”

The pilot was at no cost to the county, she said. “There are some cool tools that can hopefully streamline the process for responding to a changing situation in the field.”

There are 15 cities in the county, said Herrick. “Each one is supposed to have their own emergency plan to respond to a disaster. They have to review that plan every year. The county’s plan has to be updated every five years and report to FEMA. That opens up the ability to receive grant funding.”

 Cities can get that federal funding too, she said. “Their plan has to identify the biggest risk areas. They are different. One area that is against the mountain is different from one by the lake.”

Before the plan has been a PDF, Herrick said. “With OPs you can scan the plan and it turns into a document that can be modified at any time. If you want to change it you can. We had some flooding in a new area. This allows us to identify the flood risk that can go into the plan and get federal funding.”

Emergency managers in the cities are usually police chiefs, etc., she said. “They wear two hats. They might not stay there for their whole career. If they hand it off they don’t have to try and find that information on a document or computer. This can show them their role immediately.”

Because there are a lot of new emergency managers, Herrick said she created a tool kit with things they’ll need to do their job. “Before I had to send out long emails detailing what classes they needed to be certified through the state. OP lets me create that and send it out to all of our emergency managers listing what classes and training they need to take and what grants are open.”

OP was also used for mapping evacuation zones, she said. “The OP QR code takes you to the map. Instead of sending residents to our website, they can just have OP on their phone then they can pull it up anytime and see what their evacuation zone is or where a shelter has been set up.”

This is a helpful tool to use if someone needs information from the county, said Herrick. “This is where you can go to get timely, accurate information. It’s exciting to me to be using technology instead of relying on the old ways of knocking on doors and using phone trees.”