Unified Victim Identification System

The Unified Victim Identification System (UVIS) is an Internet-enabled database system developed for the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York (OCME) in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on New York City and the crash of American Airlines Flight 587. It is intended to handle critical fatality management functions made necessary by a major disaster.

In the event of a mass casualty event, it will initially be used by New York City's 311 call center operators, the New York Police Department, and OCME to gather key information to facilitate compiling an accurate list of missing persons. UVIS will also be used by the OCME to track decedents and collect postmortem findings to facilitate the identification process after a disaster. UVIS also contains a Pandemic Flu module to prepare against such an eventuality.

UVIS was built for the OCME by Trumbull, Connecticut-based consulting firm ICRA Sapphire Inc.

Developed with public funds, UVIS is available to municipalities, counties, states, and other governmental agencies without charge, under license from New York City.

The Ante-Mortem Section relates to activities carried out before an individual is absolutely known to be deceased. These include recording key information about the missing individual and managing interactions with the missing person's family members.

Mass casualty events generate numerous calls to government agencies: for example, the 2005 London subway bombing generated some 42,000 calls to the UK. Casualty Bureau call centers within the Bureau's first hour of operation. The Call Center module can handle tens of thousands of calls from individuals reporting or enquiring about missing persons, and record basic information about both the missing person and the caller.

The Missing Persons module enables NYPD Missing Persons detectives to conduct detailed interviews of family members, friends, and acquaintances of missing persons, and can store extremely detailed data ranging from clothing to physical characteristics such as eye and hair color to tattoo or scar information.

The UVIS Family Assistance Center module manages Family Assistance Centers (FACs), which are established to provide services to, and capture information from, the family and friends of injured, missing, or deceased disaster victims. Services generally provided at a FAC include: grief counseling; childcare; religious support; facilitation of family needs such as hotel, food, and transportation; ante-mortem data collection by the investigative authorities and the medical examiner or coroner; and notification of death to the next of kin. The UVIS Family Assistance Center module tracks all interactions and appointments with the family of missing persons, and can manage the personal items of victims received from family members for identification purposes.

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