Overcoming Spreadsheet Limitations: Unlocking Meaningful Incident Data for Effective Emergency Response

You cannot manage what you cannot measure. Many emergency response agencies (EMA) often have spreadsheets containing endless lists of numbers and words. The key is to use this information in a structured way to collect and categorize facts.

Our customers often advise that in the past, their data needs were addressed in an ad hoc manner. This included the collecting of information on spreadsheets following activities such as training, exercising, and responding to an emergency.

“We were running into the situation where we had spreadsheets and bits and pieces of information everywhere with nothing centrally located.”

Russell Lewis, Assistant Director, Northeast Massachusetts Technical Rescue Team

However, given growing budget constraints and a need for accountability, there’s a growing importance of understanding the data collected at incidents, events, and training exercises. There is a need for systematic data for budget appraisals, mitigation activities, and prevention planning for many response agencies and private sector companies.

D4H is a fully integrated readiness, response, and reevaluation platform. D4H Incident Reporting has been specifically designed to alleviate the administrative burden associated with data collection and analysis. With D4H Incident Reporting, it’s easier than ever to automatically generate insightful incident reports with charts, visualizations, and statistics. Access game-changing data to re-evaluate operations, make better decisions and evidence the true value of your organization.

Create a common reporting format to ensure that the same fields are being filled in every time. By creating common formats you may easily report and measure your incidents. To help you format your report you can create your own Custom Timestamps and Custom Fields.

Our customers have outlined some key areas where having a structured reporting solution has improved their organization and added real value.

The Importance of Meaningful Incident Data for Effective Emergency Response

Statistical analysis of multiple responses from a number of response teams, across a broad time frame, is a fast way of using statistics to see the response trends for an organization. The statistics can afford leadership an unbiased outlook of the risks faced. This allows them to mitigate, introduce preventative measures, and put the necessary preparation in place that is not based on uncorroborated presuppositions.

“Previously, reports were kept but there was no standardized format and therefore no meaningful data was produced. We now use D4H Incident Reporting to keep a structured report that must be filled in by our members after each search. This gives us meaningful data that can be used in decision-making going forward.”

Read the full review on G2.

Enchancing situational awareness for effective decision making

Statistics back up assertions. Leaders can find themselves backed into a corner when persuading people to move in a direction. Statistics can provide objective goals, with stand-alone figures, as well as hard evidence to substantiate positions.

Further, should a decision be called into question after an incident has occurred, a full audit log will clearly show the exact information that was to hand at the time to justify the decision made.

“D4H’s reporting options provide significant information that we have used to submit compliance reports to our municipal and provincial governments.”

Read the full review on G2

Ensuring Quality of Emergency Response Equipment

Anyone who has looked into continuous improvement or quality assurance programs understands the necessity for statistics. Statistics provide the means to measure and control the quality of equipment. This saves money by ensuring substandard equipment is identified and removed from service.

“D4H does a phenomenal job of providing a platform for effective report writing and cost recovery.”

Read the full review on G2

Proving Emergency Response Team Budget Needs

Response teams face a variety of fiscal issues. Sound statistics can often be the key to unlocking the budget you need. Achieving the maximum possible budget allocation can often only be achieved by proving the worth in your operational activities. The best way to prepare for this budget conversation is to know what’s going on in your organization today and to have the data to prove it.

“The overall long-term budgeting and planning of the team have greatly improved with D4H.”

Captain Phil Ambrose, City of Glendale Hazmat

In the fast-paced world of emergency response, making informed decisions is critical. Explore our blog post, where we delve into the transformative impact of data-driven decision-making in emergency response.