Towards Shared Situational Awareness and Actionable Knowledge – An Enhanced Public Health Informatics Paradigm for Keeping the Human in the Loop

Chiehwen Ed Hsu, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
William Chris Chambers, University of Maryland School of Public Health

Abstract

ABSTRACT: We propose a shift from a network-centric to a human-centric framework to assimilate emerging technologies into more effective and persistent situational awareness, integrated with actionable knowledge. Diverse communities of interest are better positioned to unify their efforts and support commanders when they are able to share situational awareness. A recent demonstration of military utility of a medical situational awareness capability for influenza surveillance validated shared situational awareness requirements in general. The current and future information environment will increase military and government requirements for situational awareness and actionable knowledge to support many “observe, assess, plan, and execute” processes by decision-makers. The capability to distinguish significant events from the ackground “noise” and then quickly focus human talent depends upon net-enabled fusion of communities, technologies, and application of appropriate algorithms and filters. This advance will impact the doctrine, business processes, and culture of many communities. Finally, we use counter-insurgency operations as a contemporary strategic exemplar to explore the benefits of increasing shared situational awareness and actionable knowledge within a decision-making framework keeping the human in the loop.