Fire & EMS Operations

The Challenge

Emergent was building an iOS app for firefighters and EMTs to document incidents in the field. The transition from NFIRS to NERIS introduced hundreds of new fire-service data requirements, including complex dependencies between fields. At the same time, the app’s existing NEMSIS implementation needed to be reevaluated and corrected. The challenge was not simply adding fields—it was determining how two complex reporting models could work together within one coherent experience.

Patient information exposed a larger information architecture problem. Although patients were connected to incidents in the underlying workflow, that relationship wasn’t clear in the interface. The incident needed to become the organizing structure—with patients, response details, and required reporting clearly connected within it.

Our Solution

We treated this as a structural problem, not a field-level one — separating the infrastructure question from the data question so the team could move without pausing development.

1. Regulatory Mapping: Analyzed and cataloged 450+ NERIS and 650+ NEMSIS data elements, documenting NERIS dependencies, reevaluating existing NEMSIS implementation, and mapping where the two standards overlapped within the product.
2. Structural Diagnosis: Identified where the current architecture couldn’t hold what was coming and escalated the gaps early, rather than waiting for the full data catalog to finish.
3. Reorganization Proposal: Whiteboarded a revised information architecture with the design team and presented seven structural recommendations — changes the team could make now so the regulatory work could plug in the moment it was ready.

Key Results

• 1,100+ NERIS and NEMSIS data elements analyzed and mapped, including hundreds of new NERIS requirements and a reevaluation of the existing NEMSIS implementation.
• 7 structural recommendations delivered early, enabling engineering to prepare the app architecture while regulatory mapping continued so new data requirements could be integrated as they became ready.
• NERIS and NEMSIS requirements unified within a single reporting experience,, reducing duplicate data entry and keeping regulatory complexity from becoming added complexity for first responders.