Lessons learned from the U.S.-Canada cross-border experiment

The first vignette established a constant broadband connection between emergency responders as they shuttled “patients” across the border. Ambulances from St. Clair County (Michigan) and Lambton County (Ontario) tested voice, video and data applications and services.

“[The PSBN is] so critical for border towns, especially because we’re so close. If there is a disaster and we can’t communicate to each other — especially with our first responders and our ambulances — that can cause a detriment to our healthcare, ” said Betty Falecki, Lake Huron’s Director of Emergency Services and Preparedness.

When American ambulances cross over into Canada, the receiving Canadian hospitals are unable to communicate with them because each country currently operates on separate networks. Falecki explained, “They’re in a dead zone. Once [the ambulances] cross the borders they have no communication whatsoever with us. If we can establish that operability, we can become one.” 

“CAUSE IV is really the first time we’ve built a stand-alone bridge between those two networks,” said Jeff Brooks, Deputy Manager of the County of Lambton EMS Department.

The public safety broadband network technology that was tested during the experiment operated in the 700 megahertz Band 14, which allowed CAUSE IV operators to seamlessly transmit data such as patient vital signs, electrocardiograms and live video in real time from hospital to hospital and ambulance to hospital.  

The experiment consisted of two temporary public safety broadband networks. In order to accurately emulate both FirstNet in the United States and the future PSBN in Canada, the base stations were located in Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario but the evolved packed core networks (EPC) for both countries were located at the Communications Research Centre (CRC) in Ottawa, Canada. The entire vignette one system was designed and implemented by DRDC CSS, the Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC) and Texas A&M University.

“With this technology we’ll be able to maintain communication in the event that the patient deteriorates, there’s a problem with the vehicle, or the crew needs directions,” Brooks added. “Video conferencing with the physician that’s receiving the patient could potentially provide better managed patient care. Doctors will have more information and will be ready for the patients when they arrive.”

“Having all key stakeholders able to communicate via voice, data, or other situational awareness tools helped paramedics to perform time-critical medical interventions, which increased patient care,” said Doug Socha, DRDC CSS’s Paramedic Portfolio Manager.

S&T notes that the other element to CAUSE IV was the work S&T carried out in vignette two to test the use of social media and digital volunteers for enhanced situational awareness. This data was analyzed in real time to permit Emergency Operations Centers (EOC) to detect, evaluate, and plan improved response.

“Incident data collected from social media could inform the safest and fastest route for an ambulance crossing the border to take, saving time and ultimately, the lives of victims,” Gusty said.

This included various methods to utilize the ‘citizen as a sensor’ concept, including having trained weather spotters report current weather conditions using a GeoForm in the field, and digital volunteers submitting information to the EOC related to road blocks, downed trees, and flash floods observed in social media (on Twitter accounts created just for the CAUSE IV experiment). The data gained from the field reports was then automatically generated into a base map that included critical infrastructure and key information. EOC personnel could then make decisions on how to plan response efforts based on what the weather spotters reported in real time.

Jeff Friedland, Director of Homeland Security Emergency Management for St. Clair County, Michigan, noted how the experiment’s use of public participation digital volunteers could be essential for first responders moving forward. “CAUSE IV showed us how to mine social media and extract what is critical or what really pertains to us and apply it instantly to our maps.”

Another problem examined during vignette two was the struggle to allocate precious resources during post-disaster damage assessment.

Friedland said, “We’re also automating damage assessment that citizens fill out electronically. It tells us where we need to send our damage assessment personnel. It prioritizes all the damage in the county and records on a continuous basis, keeps track of the number of homes destroyed, along with major and minor damage.” 

Illustrating what’s ahead for 211 call centers across Canada and the United States, Jennifer Tanner, Project Manager for 211 in Southwest Ontario, said, “We have all this information from callers that we’re able to share with municipalities and hopefully that information can help inform the decisions that are made in an EOC during an emergency.”