Informing first responders based on incident detection, and automatic reporting of individual location and equipment state

• US 9,691,262 B1
• Filed: 12/17/2015
• Issued: 06/27/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/17/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Lynar, Timothy, Smith, Olivia, Wagner, John, Kozloski, James R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Garcia, Santiago
• Application Number:
  US14/973,293
• Publication Number:
  US 20170178490A1
• Time in Patent Office: 558 Days
• Field of Search: 3405731
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0407 based on behaviour analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/043 detecting an emergency event, e.g. a fall
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0453 worn on the body to detect health condition by physiological monitoring, e.g. electrocardiogram, temperature, breathing detecting, measuring or recording for diagnostic purposes A61B5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0492 Sensor dual technology, i.e. two or more technologies collaborate to extract unsafe condition, e.g. video tracking and RFID tracking
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/006 Alarm destination chosen according to type of event, e.g. in case of fire phone the fire service, in case of medical emergency phone the ambulance
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/08 using communication transmission lines G08B13/19658, G08B21/0286, G08B25/016 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 27/001 Signalling to an emergency team, e.g. firemen
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 31/00 Predictive alarm systems characterised by extrapolation or other computation using updated historic data

Abstract

A method and system are provided. The method includes generating a set of workplace predictors of risk relating to accidents, injury, and industrial hygiene, based on at least one employee state that includes at least one of a physical state, a cognitive state, and an emotional state. The method further includes collecting data for an elevated risk of a workplace accident at a work location responsive to the set of workplace predictors. The data includes employee data for employees involved in the elevated risk and workplace machinery data for workplace machinery involved in the elevated risk. The method also includes automatically dispatching the data to first responders using one or more hardware-based information dispatching devices.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

generating a set of workplace predictors of risk relating to accidents, injury, and industrial hygiene, based on employee states that includes a physical state, a cognitive state, and an emotional state;

collecting data for an elevated risk of a workplace accident at a work location responsive to the set of workplace predictors, the data including employee data for employees involved in the elevated risk and workplace machinery data for workplace machinery involved in the elevated risk; and

automatically dispatching the data to first responders using one or more hardware-based information dispatching devices.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of workplace predictors are generated by categorizing employee states using unsupervised learning from video data and personal wearable instrumentation analysis, and categorizing sequences of employee states using supervised learning to determine the corresponding ones of the sequences of employee states that predict an accident event.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the data includes personal wearable instrumentation data obtained from personable wearable instrumentation worn by the employees while working.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining the workplace machinery data from video data captured at the work location.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising pre-computing a set of accident reports based on respective determinations of respective elevated risks of different workplace accidents.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said dispatching step comprises dispatching a particular one of the accident reports in the set.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the particular one of the accident reports is selected from the set based on a degree of similarity to the workplace accident.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising ranking the accident reports in the set using an ordering that is based on similarity to the workplace accident.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein a most similar one of the accident reports to the workplace accident is dispatched to the first responders while the first responders are in transit to the work location.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said dispatching step is performed while the first responders are in transit to the work location.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising holding the data in a standby mode until an actual occurrence of the workplace accident, wherein said dispatching step is performed responsive to the actual occurrence.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising prompting the first responder with at least one of guidelines and reminders for treating at least one of a most likely to be encountered accident type and a most likely to be encountered injury type, based on a standard first aid or other manual which is part of at least one of a training and a scope of practice of the first responders.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically notifying the first responders of locations of any first response equipment at least one of within an emergency vehicle of the first responders and proximate to the work location.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically notifying applicable ones of the first responders that first response equipment at or near the work location is likely to be required and dispatching the applicable ones of the first responders to take the first response equipment to the work location.

15. A non-transitory article of manufacture tangibly embodying a computer readable program which when executed causes a computer to perform the steps of claim 1.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising controlling one or more of the workplace machinery responsive to the data for the elevated risk, wherein controlling comprises powering down the one or more of the workplace machinery.

16. A system, comprising:

one or more computer servers having a processor configured to;

generate a set of workplace predictors of risk relating to accidents, injury, and industrial hygiene, based on employee states that include a physical state, a cognitive state, and an emotional state,

collect data for an elevated risk of a workplace accident at a work location responsive to the set of workplace predictors, and

automatically dispatch the data to first responders using one or more hardware-based information dispatching devices,

wherein the data includes employee data for employees involved in the elevated risk and workplace machinery data for workplace machinery involved in the elevated risk.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein said processor pre-computes a set of accident reports based on respective determinations of respective elevated risks of different workplace accidents.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein said processor ranks the accident reports in the set using an ordering that is based on similarity to the workplace accident, and a most similar one of the accident reports to the workplace accident is dispatched to the first responders while the first responders are in transit to the work location.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein said processor causes at least one of guidelines and reminders for treating at least one of a most likely to be encountered accident type and a most likely to be encountered injury type to be forwarded to the first responders, based on a standard first aid or other manual which is part of at least one of a training and a scope of practice of the first responders.