William G. Billotte, PhD, Jennifer Marshall and Sharon Nakich from the NIST Office of Law Enforcement Standards, on an initiative to identify standards needs in the responder community
Standards… Who needs them? Does this equipment work?
Does this equipment solve the right problem?
How do I test this equipment?
How do I use this equipment most effectively?
Will this equipment work with my current equipment?
How do I comparison shop? Should I buy this?
If this equipment fails in the field, to whom do I report it?
T
these are the questions that face the law enforcement, fire, emergency medical services, and overall
responder, community every day. Standards are valuable resources to help make those tough decisions, but knowledge of their existence and accessibility varies greatly in the responder community. There are many types of standards: some are physical, such as standard reference materials; some are measurements, such as the kilogram; and others are consensus-based, guidance documents. No matter what type, a standard is simply what a community follows as guidance. Responders need standards to choose and operate safe equipment, to train employees properly, and develop the most effective standard operating procedures (SOPs). Equipment, training and SOPs are the ‘fire triangle’ for the responder community. If one of these is missing or deficient, safety and effectiveness are placed in jeopardy and lives may be lost. Unfortunately, there is little understanding about who establishes standards, and which standards are being used in the responder community. Thus, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), through its Law Enforcement Standards Office (OLES), implemented a small pilot to gather metrics and insights related to these questions.
OLES worked with ASTM
International, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) to provide participants with access to all of their standards, in order to better understand awareness and topics of interest. The participants were able to view all of the NFPA standards and OLES paid for any downloaded standards from ASTM International and IEEE. The pilot was launched on an SAI Global, Inc. internet platform on August 2nd, 2011, and the standards were available for free through October 31st, 2011, to anyone with a government (.gov) or military (.mil) email address.
There were a total of 612 downloaded standards. The most popular standards on the pilot (by a large margin) were related to radiation detection. The two standards downloaded the most were ANSI N42.33— Portable Radiation Detection Instrumentation for Homeland Security, with 19 downloads; and ANSI N42.34 – Performance Criteria for Handheld Instruments for the Detection and Identification of Radionuclides, with 15 downloads. NFPA 101: Life Safety Code was popular, as was the standard on Protective Ensembles for First Responders to Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Terrorism Incidents. Interest was also shown in the following topics: • Radiation detection, including personal radiation detectors; cargo and vessel detection; mobile and transportable radiation detectors; as well as test and calibration methods.
• Other homeland security-related equipment including active interrogation systems and response to hazardous materials/weapons of mass destruction incidents
• Protective clothing, including respirators, gloves, eyewear, test methods, and terminology
• Internet technology-related standards, including Ethernet, telecommunications, software acquisition, software safety plans, and unit testing.
OLES received significant feedback on the pilot program. Comments included the usefulness of a single interface to access many different standards organisations, suggestions for improving the user interface, recommendations for establishing a permanent program, and general appreciation for the pilot concept. OLES plans on offering a follow-on pilot that would allow wider participation and would capture more metrics on which standards responders need. In particular, the follow-on will include state and local responder organisations that do not have government or military email addresses. Overall, the pilot was a success with identification of a path forward to try to help the responder community conduct their work safely and efficiently. The pilot was also successful in offering a variety of standards for everyone participating.
USA National Strategy for CBRNE Standards – A Crib Sheet by S Johnson The observant reader will see a lot of mentions coming up online, in the magazine and around the house about ‘Presidential Directives’ and a ‘National Strategy for CBRNE Standards’. None of us like to show our ignorance so to help give you the low down on this rather interesting and comprehensive initiative, we’ve put together a bit of a crib guide to the strategy and what it means.
Steve, I’ve been on Mars, What’s happened while I was away? Well, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in collaboration with the Departments of Homeland Security and Commerce, released in late August 2011 the National Strategy for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) Standards, which describes the federal vision and goals for the coordination, prioritisation, establishment, and implementation of CBRNE equipment standards by 2020.
What does that mean exactly and why is it needed? Well national preparedness is the name of the game and preparedness means appropriately equipped, trained and maintained responders. For CBRNE this also translates in to ensuring that the equipment is safe, reliable, performs consistently in order to be able to plan for its use, and that responders know how to operate it and behave in a consistent
CBRNe South America 2012, 13-14 March, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. More information on
www.icbrnevents.com 54 CBRNe WORLD February 2012
www.cbrneworld.com
CBRNeWORLD
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