This paper examines how an individual's disaster experience affects his or her perceptions of sociotechnical safety factors (risk, information assurance, resilience) and perceived usefulness of hospital information systems (HIS). This paper consists of two studies focusing on different aspects: a quasi-field experiment conducted with employees in three hospitals affected by a severe snowstorm (labeled a federal disaster) (N = 103), where we compare the perceptual factors in the context of the disaster experience (with versus without recall), and a comparative study between a first sample group (with disaster experience) and a second, contrast sample group (with no disaster experience) of hospital employees (N= 179) from two similar hospitals. The results show that the disaster experience changes the relationships among the perceptual factors that affect perceived usefulness. Individuals tend to perceive negative factors (such as risk) as having greater effects when they actually have direct experience in a disaster situation than in a normal situation. Positive factors (such as information assurance and resilience) have a lesser impact among individuals who have disaster experience (with versus without recall).
The increasing number of campus-related emergency incidents, in combination with the requirements imposed by the Clery Act, have prompted college campuses to develop emergency notification systems to inform community members of extreme events that may affect them. Merely deploying emergency notification systems on college campuses, however, does not guarantee that these systems will be effective; student compliance plays a very important role in establishing such effectiveness. Immediate compliance with alerts, as opposed to delayed compliance or noncompliance, is a key factor in improving student safety on campuses. This paper investigates the critical antecedents that motivate students to comply immediately with messages from campus emergency notification systems. Drawing on Etzioni's compliance theory, a model is developed. Using a scenario-based survey method, the model is tested in five types of eventsÑsnowstorm, active shooter, building fire, health-related, and robberyÑand with more than 800 college students from the Northern region of the United States. The results from this study suggest that subjective norm and information quality trust are, in general, the most important factors that promote immediate compliance. This research contributes to the literature on compliance, emergency notification systems, and emergency response policies.
Post-analyses of major extreme events reveal that information sharing is critical for effective emergency response. The lack of consistent data standards for current emergency management practice, however, hinders efficient critical information flow among incident responders. In this paper, we adopt a third-generation activity theory guided approach to develop a data model that can be used in the response to fire-related extreme events. This data model prescribes the core data standards to reduce information inter operability barriers. The model is validated through a three-step approach including a request for comment (RFC) process, case application, and prototype system test. This study contributes to the literature in the area of interoperability and data modeling; it also informs practice in emergency response system design.