Key Concepts

Preferences are the options you choose in EMResource that determine what kind of information you receive and how you receive it. The Preferences menu contains the following options, depending on your roles, rights, and the features enabled by your organization: System Notifications, Event Notifications, Status Change Preferences, Custom View, and User Information.

The Roles you create and assign to your users govern the views and features that are available to them. Each role grants a predefined set of rights that dictate the features in EMResource the user can access and use, including:

• Views and resources (and sub-resources) the user can access

• Status types the user can view or update

• Access to reports and forms

• Ability to manage events and send notifications

There is no limit to the numbers of roles you can create or the combination of rights you can set up for each role. 

A user's rights govern the views and features to which the user has access. Administrators can assign these rights to roles and users.

Views are pages that provide an overview of a region's resources and their corresponding statuses. Every region has a default view. Your region probably has a number of other views configured, some or all of which may be available to you. In addition, each user can create their own custom view. Users with the appropriate permissions can configure any number of views to support your region's needs, and make them available to any or all regional users.

You can set up views using resource types, resources, and status types. You can display these elements in any order, though resources must stay grouped within their corresponding resource type. Each user can also set up their own custom view and make it their default view. You can also set up views that span regions.

When a user clicks a resource's name in a View page, the resource's Detail View page opens. Authorized administrators can customize this view as needed. This configuration is applied to all resource detail views in the region.

Customizing the Detail View lets you specify an appropriate order to your resources and statuses; the layout and statuses you specify here affect many areas of the application. In addition, the order you specify dictates the order in which details appear in the Event Status page. Customization features also include sub-resources.

Views other than your Region Default, Map, and Custom (appearing in the View menu) are Region Views. Your Regional Administrator determines the content of each of these pages, and specifies the users who have access to each. They can be organized by geographic location, resource type, a healthcare system, or any other grouping that meets your region's needs.

Dashboards allow people to quickly review important information about resources and status types. New dashboards start out empty, but you can populate them with tables or summaries by adding widgets. Widgets display resource and status type data as graphs or summaries. Most types of widgets let you specify a resource group or resource types and status types to display data from.

Widgets are components added to dashboards to organize, analyze, and present information about resources and status types. Widgets display as tables, graphs, or summaries, and they have specific themes that define the type of displayed data. When creating widgets, you may have to identify a resource group or resource types, status type, and other options that determine what information is displayed.

Regional administrators set up available status types, which are custom fields that track information about resources. For example, you may set up statuses types for ED Bed Availability or Power Failure. Your region has complete control over configuring its status types. Therefore, most of the status types available to you are unique to your region.

A status type's format defines the information that the type addresses or is intended to communicate. This includes the following options: Date, Multiple Choice, Number, Text, NEDOCS Calculation, and Calculated.

Forms are an effective way to gather and disseminate information. Forms are configurable and can take on a variety of behaviors, depending on how they are activated and who is responsible for completing them. After a form has been created and configured, there are several additional stages in its life cycle. Namely, it must be activated, submitted, delivered, and acknowledged.

Administrators with the appropriate permissions can view, configure, copy, and edit forms and form questions. After forms are activated, completed, and submitted, they are delivered to the specified recipients. When you configure a form, you specify the form template's name, delivery method(s), triggers for activation, and individuals/resources responsible for completing and submitting the form.

A resource is an entity that reports a status, such as facilities, organizations, and agencies that report information on medical capabilities, services, or supplies. For example, you might create resources for hospitals or EMS providers. In addition, you can implement a hierarchy consisting of two levels: resources and sub-resources. Sub-resources are generally items or services owned by or associated with a resource, such as a generator or contact. With the appropriate permissions, you can create or edit a resource, manage a resource's status types and users, and work with sub-resources.

Resource types are categories used to divide and distinguish resources. Resources that share common characteristics and report the same statuses can be grouped into resource types. Sub-resources are secondary resources that may or may not be essential, but in general, are considered attributes of resources. Basically, sub-resources are objects, services, or functions that “belong” to resources. Similarly, sub-resource types belong to resource types.

Resource groups are comprised of resources that share one or more characteristics. EMResource is preconfigured with several global resource groups. You can create additional resource groups to help collect information about similar resources, such as a group for Trauma Level I facilities in the region, dialysis centers in the state, or mobile medical units in neighboring counties. Resource groups are used with widgets that display information on dashboards.

After adding a resource, you can configure it to display on views. By clicking on a resource, you can view or edit information for that resource on its Detail View. You can also update its resource statuses. Updating a resource status may call for selecting from a predefined set of options, entering a number or free text, or filling out a form to calculate NEDOCS Calculation.

You or another authorized individual should update the statuses of your resource and sub-resources (facility, provider, equipment) whenever they change or when the system prompts you to do so. Updating statuses ensures that other users at your location and in your region have the most up-to-date information. The timing of system prompts depends on your local policy.

Events are situations or activities that are typically episodic. These situations often demand increased communications and can include additional status queries. Examples include emergencies, such as mass casualty incidents, public health advisories, Amber Alerts, severe weather warnings, supply queries, and bed counts. Events such as drills, exercises, sporting events, and training sessions can also be planned.

Authorized users can create and edit event templates to predefine settings for specific types of events. For example, you can create an event template for severe weather events and specify appropriate resource types and status types for severe weather. Whenever you create an event, you can base the event's settings on an existing event template. You can create event templates for a wide range of situations, such as mass casualty incidents, sporting and music events, and public health announcements.

People and resources within the same administrative jurisdiction are grouped into a region. If you have the appropriate permissions, you can edit your region's details, including the information for your regional contact. Additional region-wide settings are also configured from the Edit Region page, such as the frequency of reminders to users about updating their user account and the frequency of audio alerts.

If you want to share resource information with another region, you need to establish a mutual aid agreement. After the agreement has been established, you can manage visibility into your region by activating or deactivating the relationship with another region. You are also able to indicate which people in your region have access to view other regions by assigning read-only access to users and resources in your region.

NHSN Data Submission is an optional feature that allows EMResource to submit data to NHSN based on requirements from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Currently, the CMS requires hospitals and other specified facilities to report 55 specific data elements related to respiratory diseases. These data elements are collectively labeled as Hospital Respiratory Data (HRD). If these hospitals and facilities do not report HRD, they will not receive Medicare payments.

EMResource can collect and submit HRD to NHSN. To participate in NHSN Data Submission through EMResource, contact your Client Success Manager (CSM).

Dynamic Status Sharing (DSS) lets you share resources and status types to other regions. To do so, you must request a collaboration between an owner region and a target region. The owner region controls the settings for the collaboration, shared resources, and shared status types. If you want to share resources and status types from one owner region to multiple target regions, you can request multiple collaborations.