System for managing organizational emergencies and coordinating emergency responses

• US 10,567,944 B2
• Filed: 09/19/2018
• Issued: 02/18/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Qnexis Inc.
• Original Assignee: Qnexis Inc.
• Inventors: Nguyen, Kurt
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Dung
• Application Number:
  US16/136,236
• Publication Number:
  US 20190020993A1
• Time in Patent Office: 517 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/046 Interoperability with other network applications or services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/222 using geographical location information, e.g. messages transmitted or received in proximity of a certain spot or area
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/90 Services for handling of emergency or hazardous situations, e.g. earthquake and tsunami warning systems [ETWS]

Abstract

An emergency response system includes remote computing devices programmed via executable code instructions to broadcast an emergency alert to recipients, responsive to instructions received from administrators or emergency responders, the emergency alert including a response request permitting recipients to provide a binary positive or negative user status response, receive the responses from the recipients along with location information, send a map showing known recipient locations coded by corresponding response status to the administrators/responders, provide chat functionality between users during an emergency alert, provide social media functions including message exchange between users, and override the social media functions during an emergency alert so that social media messages cannot be exchanged.

Claims

1. An emergency response system, comprising:

a first set of one or more computing devices programmed, via executable code instructions, to;

broadcast a first emergency alert to a second set of one or more recipient computing devices, responsive to instructions received from one or more of a third set of administrative or responder computing devices, the first emergency alert comprising information relating to an emergency and a response request, the response request permitting a user of each of the second set of one or more recipient computing devices to provide a binary positive or negative user status response;

receive binary positive or negative user status responses from the second set of recipient computing devices, and/or location information corresponding to each of the second set of recipient computing devices;

send follow-up communications and/or queries to users of the second set of one or more recipient computing devices from which no status response and/or negative status responses were received;

utilize the received location information to identify positive status users of the second set of one or more recipient devices from which positive status responses were received who are located closest to users of the second set of one or more recipient computing devices from which no status response and/or negative status responses were received and querying them as to the status and/or location of the users of the second set of one or more recipient computing devices from which no status response and/or negative status responses were received.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising the second set of one or more recipient computing devices, wherein each of the one or more recipient computing devices of the second set is programmed, via executable code instructions, to:

receive the first emergency alert;

display the response request, responsive to receiving the first emergency alert, such that the user thereof can provide a binary positive or negative user status response by a single actuation; and

transmit location information for the respective computing device and any user status response.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, to provide summary statistics including number of recipient computing devices located within a given predetermined geographical area and/or number of recipient computing devices located within the given predetermined geographical area that have associated a negative user status response or no user status response.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the predetermined geographical area comprises a building, a property, a campus, an area including a building, property, and/or campus and a certain surrounding area, and/or a given predetermined radius around a point.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the summary statistics include number and/or percentage of number of recipient computing devices from which a response has been received and a list of recipient computing devices from which a response has not been received, wherein the administrative or responder computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, to receive a selection of one or more recipient computing devices from the list and display further information regarding the selected one or more recipient computing devices and/or their users and to initiate an email, chat message, or phone call to the selected one or more recipient computing devices and/or their users.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, to broadcast additional information pertaining to the first emergency alert to the second set of one or more recipient computing devices.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, to receive updates to the binary positive or negative user status responses from the second set of recipient computing devices, and/or updates to the location information corresponding to each of the second set of recipient computing devices.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, to receive a selected subset of the second set of one or more recipient computing devices from a user of one of the third set of one or more administrator or responder computing devices and to query the subset as to the status and/or location of one or more of the users of the second set of one or more recipient computing devices from which no status response and/or negative status responses were received.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, to receive one or more selected modes of transmission from a user of one of the third set of one or more administrator or responder computing devices and to broadcast the first emergency alert in the selected modes, the selected modes comprising one or more of email, SMS, and push notification.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the responder computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, to receive an instruction to suppress the response request from a user of one of the third set of one or more administrator or responder computing devices and to broadcast a second emergency alert to the second set of one or more recipient computing devices, the second emergency alert comprising information relating to a second emergency and not comprising a response request.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the recipient computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, to vibrate, play a special ringtone or sound, and/or display graphical elements when the first emergency alert is broadcast, to indicate an extraordinary nature of the first emergency alert.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising an organizational data repository comprising identity information regarding members of an organization, wherein the computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, to receive requests from unregistered computing devices to register as recipient computing devices associated with recipient users, the requests including associated identity information, and to check the identity information associated with the requests against the identity information in the organizational data repository regarding the members of the organization, and approving the request where a match is found.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, to receive a non-emergency message from one of the administrative or responder computing devices and broadcast it to the recipient computing devices by email, SMS, and/or application push notification.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, to receive requests to associate new relationship computing devices with the recipient computing devices, and to carry out or deny the received requests.

15. The system of claim 1, further comprising the third set of one or more administrative or responder computing devices, wherein each of the one or more administrative or responder computing devices of the third set is programmed, via executable code instructions, to:

retrieve and display a directory of the second set of recipient computing devices and/or their users, to sort the directory by user status response, to display information for individual computing devices and/or users from the directory based on selections received from a user thereof, and to create temporary subsets of the second set of recipient computing devices based on received selections and transmit communications to all members of the temporary subsets simultaneously.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, responsive to requests from the third set of administrative or responder computing devices, to transmit contact information corresponding to selected recipient computing devices to the requesting administrative or responder computing devices.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing devices are further programmed, via executable code instructions, to track content of messages passing between recipient computing devices and to determine types of content that are most frequently exchanged.

18. Non-transitory computer storage comprising instructions for causing a first set of one or more computing devices to determine, triage, follow-up and assist organizational members in an emergency by:

broadcasting a first emergency alert to a second set of one or more recipient computing devices, responsive to instructions received from one or more of a third set of administrative or responder computing devices, the first emergency alert comprising information relating to an emergency and a response request, the response request permitting a user of each of the second set of one or more recipient computing devices to provide a binary positive or negative user status response;

receiving binary positive or negative user status responses from the second set of recipient computing devices, and/or location information corresponding to each of the second set of recipient computing devices;

sending follow-up communications and/or queries to users of the second set of one or more recipient computing devices from which no status response and/or negative status responses were received; and

utilizing the received location information to identify positive status users of the second set of one or more recipient devices from which positive status responses were received who are located closest to users of the second set of one or more recipient computing devices from which no status response and/or negative status responses were received and querying them as to the status and/or location of the users of the second set of one or more recipient computing devices from which no status response and/or negative status responses were received.