American Red Cross Digital Operations Center (DigiDOC): an essential emergency management tool for the digital age

Social media is becoming the first source of information and also the first way to communicate messages. Because social media users will take action based on the information they are seeing, it is important that organizations like the Red Cross be active in the social space. We describe the American Red Cross's concept for a Digital Operations Center (DigiDOC) that we believe should become an essential part of all emergency operations centers and a key piece of all agencies that operate in disasters. The American Red Cross approach is a practical and logical approach that other agencies can use as a model.