Characterizing and Improving Collaboration and Information-Sharing Across Emergency Preparedness and Response Communities

Events such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina have made abundantly clear the need for greater collaboration and information sharing among government agencies during emergencies. The effectiveness of emergency preparedness and response (EP&R) depends fundamentally on the ability of a wide variety of organizational and professional communities to work together. E-government initiatives can promote the necessary information sharing, coordination, and collaboration (ISC2) or can be rendered less effective due to social, organizational, and/or technological obstacles. This paper reports on research-in-progress that aims to characterize and make recommendations for ISC2 improvements of across EP&R communities. We present a conceptual model of the EP&R domain designed to highlight the most critical impediments to effective communication, coordination, and collaboration and the most powerful points of leverage for e-government initiatives to support EP&R.