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Hospital AVailability Exchange (HAVE)

1. Introduction *
Document Scope and Purpose *
This document specifies the requirements supporting the “EDXL Standard Format for Hospital AVailability Exchange (HAVE)” draft specification. This document is in the format requested by the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee (EM-TC) and is provided by the EDXL Project Team. The scope of this document includes requirements for the HAVE draft specification.
Background Information
In a disaster or emergency situation, there is a clear need for hospitals to be able to communicate with each other, and with other members and organizations of the emergency response community. The ability to exchange data with regard to hospitals’ bed availability, status, and capacity enables both the hospitals and the other emergency agencies to respond to emergencies or disaster situations with greater efficiency and speed. In particular, it allows emergency dispatchers and managers to make sound logistics decisions - where to route victims, which hospitals are open and able to offer what services. Many hospitals have expressed the need for, and indeed many are currently using, commercial or self-developed information technology that allows them to publish this information to other hospitals in a region, as well as EOCs, 9-1-1 centers, and EMS responders via various Web-based tools.

Systems that are available today do not record or present data in a standardized format, creating a serious barrier to data sharing between hospitals and emergency response groups. Without data standards, parties of various kids are unable to view data from hospitals in a state or region that use a different system – unless a specialized interface is developed. Alternatively, such officials must get special passwords and toggle between web pages to get a full picture. Other local emergency responders are unable to get the data imported into the emergency IT tools they use (e.g. a 9-1-1 computer-aided dispatch system, or an EOC consequence information management system). They too must get a pass word and go to the appropriate web page. This is very inefficient. A uniform data standard will allow different applications and systems to communicate seamlessly.