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US-12620042-B1 - Network based reunification management using portable devices

US12620042B1US 12620042 B1US12620042 B1US 12620042B1US-12620042-B1

Abstract

An emergency management system for a school includes: one or more computers; and a wearable device including a button, wherein engagement of the button by a user causes the emergency management system to initiate an emergency response to an incident at the school, including by sending, from the wearable device and to the one or more computers in response to the engagement of the button, a signal indicating a request to initiate the emergency response to the incident at the school, the one or more computers being configured to perform operations comprising: receiving, from the wearable device and by the one or more computers, the signal indicating the request to initiate the emergency response to the incident at the school; and in response to receiving the signal from the wearable device, activating one or more emergency response protocols at the school.

Inventors

  • James J. Vesterman
  • Gary Kincade
  • David Van Camp
  • Peter J. Trate

Assignees

  • Raptor Technologies LLC

Dates

Publication Date
20260505
Application Date
20250206

Claims (20)

  1. 1 . An emergency management system for a school, comprising: one or more computers; and a wearable device including a button, wherein engagement of the button by a user causes the emergency management system to initiate an emergency response to an incident at the school, including by sending, from the wearable device and to the one or more computers in response to the engagement of the button, a signal indicating (i) a request to initiate the emergency response to the incident at the school and (ii) a particular type of the emergency response, the one or more computers being configured to perform operations comprising: receiving, from the wearable device and by the one or more computers, the signal indicating the request to initiate the emergency response to the incident at the school; and in response to receiving the signal from the wearable device: activating one or more emergency response protocols at the school; identifying, based on the particular type of emergency response, a group of users associated with the incident; and transmitting a notification to the group of users indicating occurrence of the incident at the school.
  2. 2 . The emergency management system of claim 1 , wherein the wearable device comprises a wearable computer.
  3. 3 . The emergency management system of claim 2 , wherein the wearable device includes a display, and the button comprises a user-selectable icon presented through a user interface on the display.
  4. 4 . The emergency management system of claim 1 , wherein the button is associated with the particular type of emergency response.
  5. 5 . The emergency management system of claim 1 , wherein the particular type of emergency response includes lockout, lockdown, evacuation, shelter, hold, or team assist.
  6. 6 . The emergency management system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more emergency response protocols are designated for the particular type of emergency response.
  7. 7 . The emergency management system of claim 1 , wherein: the particular type of emergency response is selected based on characteristics of user engagement of the button, the particular type of emergency response includes lockout, lockdown, evacuation, shelter, hold, or team assist, and the one or more emergency response protocols are designated for the particular type of emergency response.
  8. 8 . The emergency management system of claim 7 , wherein the characteristics of the user engagement of the button include a number of presses of the button.
  9. 9 . The emergency management system of claim 1 , wherein the signal indicates a location of the wearable device with reference to a school map at a time of the engagement of the button by the user.
  10. 10 . The emergency management system of claim 9 , wherein the location of the wearable device at the time of the engagement of the button by the user is determined by triangulation using radio signals.
  11. 11 . The emergency management system of claim 7 , wherein the notification indicates a location of the wearable device with reference to a school map at a time of the engagement of the button by the user.
  12. 12 . A wearable device including a button, wherein engagement of the button by a user causes initiation of an emergency response to an incident at a school, including by sending, from the wearable device and to one or more computers in response to the engagement of the button, a signal indicating (i) a request to initiate the emergency response to the incident at the school and (ii) a particular type of the emergency response, wherein the signal causes the one or more computers to; activate one or more emergency protocols at the school; identify, based on the particular type of emergency response, a group of users associated with the incident; and transmit a notification to the group of users indicating occurrence of the incident at the school.
  13. 13 . The wearable device of claim 12 , comprising a wearable computer including a display, wherein the button comprises a user-selectable icon presented on the display.
  14. 14 . The wearable device of claim 12 , wherein the signal indicates a particular type of emergency response is selected based on characteristics of user engagement of the button.
  15. 15 . The wearable device of claim 12 , wherein the particular type of emergency response includes lockout, lockdown, evacuation, shelter, hold, or team assist.
  16. 16 . The wearable device of claim 12 , wherein the signal indicates a location of the wearable device with reference to a school map at a time of the engagement of the button by the user.
  17. 17 . The wearable device of claim 16 , wherein the location of the wearable device at the time of the engagement of the button by the user is determined by triangulation using radio signals.
  18. 18 . The wearable device of claim 12 , wherein sending the signal to the one or more computers is further responsive to authenticating the user.
  19. 19 . The emergency management system of claim 1 , the operations comprising: storing data representing a plurality of groups of users, each user having a profile registered with the emergency management system, wherein identifying the group of users associated with the incident comprises identifying the group of users from the plurality of groups of users.
  20. 20 . The wearable device of claim 12 , wherein identifying the group of users associated with the incident comprises identifying the group of users from a plurality of groups of users, each user having a profile registered with an emergency management system for the school.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION The present application is a continuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/597,456 filed Mar. 6, 2024, and claims priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/158,300 filed Jan. 23, 2023 titled “NETWORK BASED REUNIFICATION MANAGEMENT USING PORTABLE DEVICES” and claims priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/239,401 titled “NETWORK BASED REUNIFICATION MANAGEMENT USING PORTABLE DEVICES”, which was filed Apr. 23, 2021, now U.S. Pat. No. 11,562,452 issued Jan. 24, 2023, which is a continuation of 16/563,685 titled “NETWORK BASED REUNIFICATION MANAGEMENT USING PORTABLE DEVICES”, which was filed Sep. 6, 2019, now U.S. Pat. No. 10,991,226, issued Apr. 27, 2021, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/208,032 titled “NETWORK BASED REUNIFICATION MANAGEMENT USING PORTABLE DEVICES”, which was filed Dec. 3, 2018, now U.S. Pat. No. 10,446,005 issued Oct. 15, 2019, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/298,948, titled “NETWORK BASED REUNIFICATION MANAGEMENT USING PORTABLE DEVICES,” which was filed on Oct. 20, 2016, now U.S. Pat. No. 10,176,692 issued Jan. 8, 2019, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/244,619, titled “FACILITATING REUNIFICATION USING PORTABLE DEVICES,” which was filed on Oct. 21, 2015, the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference into the present application. FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present disclosure relates to facilitating the reunification of students with parents or other guardians during or following an emergency or other incident. BACKGROUND Recent decades have seen an unfortunate increase in emergency incidents at schools or other institutions. Traditional plans for responding to an emergency incident may rely on paper records and the accurate memory and focused attention of personnel on the scene. However, during the chaos and confusion of an emergency, paper records may be lost, destroyed, or corrupted, and personnel may become distracted or forgetful. Moreover, personnel on the scene may be emergency responders who may not be familiar with the students or others in need of assistance, leading to further confusion and misidentification of individuals. In a traditional emergency response, the absence of up-to-date, accurate information may lead to the loss or injury of students or others in need of assistance. SUMMARY Several aspects of the invention feature managing the reunification of students with parents or other guardians during an emergency or a drill scenario, through the operations of various user interfaces (UIs) presented by one or more applications executing on computing devices such as portable computing devices. Different UIs may be configured to support different personnel performing different roles in the reunification of students with guardians. In some implementations, the UIs may include one or more of a student supervisor UI, a location supervisor UI, a runner UI, a guardian greeter UI, a reunification officer UI, or an incident commander UI. Various implementations may include different subsets of these UIs as appropriate to manage reunification for different types of emergencies, different emergency response scenarios, or drills. The various UIs enable different personnel to track the location and status of individuals such as students and guardians to be reunified, enable personnel to dynamically update a centralized database with current information regarding the location and status of individuals, such as students, staff, visitors, volunteers, contractors, and so forth, and view real time information regarding the location and status of such individuals. The various UIs, and/or subset(s) of UIs, also enable the different user types to view documents, including action plans, emergency plans, facility maps, and so forth, from their mobile device. Access to view documents may be performed with or without network connectivity to remote centralized databases. In some instances, the documents may provide checklists for the actions to be taken by personnel. The various UIs enable users to send notifications, messages, data, content, and other forms of media to each other, to support real-time incident management and communication. The system may also provide the ability to perform custody information checks, custom alert checks, as well as (e.g., nationwide) sex offender registry checks on individuals being reunified with students. Some implementations provide a computer-implemented method for tracking an escort, e.g., by a runner, of one or more students to a destination location. The method includes presenting, in a UI executing on a computing device, a runner queue including one or more records. Each of the one or more records includes a name of a student and an escort status of the student. Based at least partly on detecting a first gesture made through the UI indicating a record of the one or more records, the