FirstWatch^TM is the first system to be able to continuously scan 9-1-1 calls and CAD public safety data for unusual trends against user defined patterns. It’s a kind of “data radar” that can be used as an early warning system to detect a stealth biological attack, against a monitored population.  (Click on the link to the right to view/download FirstWatch^TM screenshots.)

When FirstWatch^TM detects suspicious trends users are alerted to the anomaly via on- screen, pager, e-mail, printed and faxed alerting reports.  These logs detail the reasons for the alarm, providing instant critical access to the specific call data which triggered the alert.  A powerful call patterning spatial analysis mapping tool provides data trend graphing.

This information can then be used by public safety and health officials to rapidly research and identify the causes for the data aberrancies, providing an early warning to the signs of a silent biological attack measured in hours instead of the days or weeks with manual systems now in place.  FirstWatch^TM  can be used not just to identify data patterns of biological terrorism, but can also alert public safety agencies to the danger of other events, such as heat or cold emergencies, drowning patterns for targeted PSA’s, accident rate patterns, crime patterns, fire suppression patterns, etc.

Harvard University studies (see http://dsg.bwh.harvard.edu/courses/hst950/5.pdf) have shown that an early warning system could allow officials time to implement a response that, due to the timeliness provided by the early warning, could substantially improve morbidity and mortality rates given such an attack.  FirstWatch^TM was developed with this goal in mind, and can typically be implemented in a day or two.

The true power of FirstWatch^TM  lies in its ability to quickly detect and alert not just on local individual agency data sets, but on regional, statewide and national information.  This is accomplished via a very simple but proven secure and encrypted centralized internet public safety data collection network. Users of FirstWatch^TM become a part of this network when they install the product and get instant secure access to their area's surveillance status.  The network provides users with the same reporting information (including logs, graphs and spatial analysis maps) provided in the local reporting tool via the internet, allowing unprecedented access to this information 24 hours a day seven days a week via any internet-connected browser.  This information can be aggregated and / or shared with local, state and federal agencies as part of a regional, statewide or national real- time bioterrorism surveillance system.  It can also identify other epidemiological and public safety population trends such as the impact of weather systems.

The local version of FirstWatch^TM was conceptualized and implemented in 1999 in Kansas City, Missouri in conjunction with the Metropolitan Ambulance Services Trust (MAST) and the Kansas City, Missouri Health Department.   For the past three years, FirstWatch^TM has been monitoring and alerting on anomalies found there, against the symptom patterns indicative of the release of a biological agent.  Since the terrorist attack on Sept. 11 and the subsequent anthrax deaths, the demand for a more robust biosurvelliance product like FirstWatch^TM has led Stout Solutions, LLC to improve and expand upon its initial product.

The Richmond (Virginia) Ambulance Authority was the first agency in the world to participate in the FirstWatch^TM Beta release. For the past several months FirstWatch^TM has been monitoring the Richmond population against bioterrorism and environmental events.Stout Solutions has completed the initial beta development phase, and is now actively installingFirstWatch^TM in many cities and towns across the U.S.