Patent ID: 7343302

Claim:
A method for emergency response, comprising: acquiring data regarding a potential emergency situation from a plurality of heterogeneous sources selected from the group of sources composed of mobile sensing and communicating devices, fixed sensing and communicating devices, private databases, public databases and third-party information systems, including medical and non-medical data from medical and non-medical sources potentially indicative of a biological emergency; communicating the data directly from two or more of the plurality of heterogeneous sources in an automated manner; integrating the acquired data into a common data model that allows for subsequent analysis and presentation; detecting or predicting the existence, scale and scope of an emergency situation by correlative analysis of the integrated data, by use of one or more computer systems; providing advisories as to how best to respond to a detected or predicted emergency situation; communicating data regarding the detected or predicted emergency situation for collaborative situation assessment and response planning; and generating a multidimensional graphical user interface for allowing a user to visually interpret the acquired data.