The RapidSOS startup has launched a data sharing tool designed to help emergency dispatchers from multiple agencies communicate across all platforms.

Emergency Data Exchange, or EDX, “represents a new way for RapidSOS to enable data sharing between disparate platforms and unite emergency communication center operations by providing interoperability of data and a common understanding of an incident requiring multi-agency response, ”wrote Jessica Reed, the company’s vice president for strategy and global partners, in an email to Government technology.

As she said, the tool allows different emergency agencies to subscribe to a single incident using a standard National Emergency Number Association (NENA) interface. This gives these agencies quick access to data about an incident as it unfolds, as well as the ability to view that data through each agency’s own computer-assisted dispatch user interface.

“EDX integrates the same incident data across all responding agencies, eliminating the communication problems and interference often encountered when relaying critical incident data via voice over congested radio channels,” Reed wrote.

Agencies using the tool can deploy the technology in days, according to Reed, assuming they already have cloud-based software that supports NENA’s EIDO standard and the RapidSOS EDX API.

“Site-based systems will likely require software upgrades to support integration,” she wrote. “However, we are increasingly finding that providers of public safety software solutions have network connectivity to their on-premise solutions that can be used, and therefore shorten deployment time, to connect to the EDX based on the. RapidSOS cloud. “

This new RapidSOS tool was built on Amazon Web Service’s GovCloud.

One of the technology’s selling points, Reed said, is its ability to deliver sensitive law enforcement-related data – the key to these new tools designed to better connect emergency dispatchers and speed up response. incident response.

“Because AWS GovCloud is only physically and logically accessible by American people, government agencies can manage more heavily regulated data in AWS while still remaining compliant with strict federal requirements,” wrote a spokesperson for Amazon in a statement.

The online retailer and cloud computing provider declined to provide details on the number of local and state agencies using GovCloud.

This new tool provides another example of the continued expansion of the RapidSOS network and its offerings. In July, for example, the company launched an Emergency Response Technology Network that gives customers access to the latest public safety software.