CDC and OnStar partner for auto disaster response

| 03.23.2007 | 05:58:587413 |

March 23 '07: The Associated Press reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta have partnered withe General Motor Corp.'s OnStar service to help improve response times to automobile accidents. On Wednesday, General Motors announced "a partnership with federal health officials to create guidelines ... for the use of real-time crash data to help emergency services."

The plan would go into effect 2008 and it would help to target specific information for responders who are not yet at the scene of the accident, the AP reported. The benefit of the OnStar technology, officials said, was it provided exact locations of vehicles and thus would help reduce the amount of time and confusion finding the accident.

Also, the technology will help responders to analyze severity of the accident so that a decision on where to send the victims will be reduced and more accurate. the Charles Stokes, the president and CEO of the CDC Foundation told the AP, "It will save lives and dollars in making sure that the right people get to the right institutions with the right care."

The partnership funded by a $250,000 grant from General Motors. Almost two-thirds of all GM vehicles now have the OnStar technology and by 2008 most of the company's vehicles will have the technology available the AP reported.