Information Collection and Dissemination: Toward a portable, real-time information sharing platform for emergency response

Abstract

The Advanced Health and Disaster Aid Network (AID-N) project seeks to 1) identify unmet needs of Washington DC area emergency response teams during mass casualty incidents and, 2) conduct feasibility tests of technology-based solutions. This paper describes Surveillance and Incident Reporting PDAs (SIRP), which provide an alternative platform for emergency response information collection, dissemination, and visualization.

BACKGROUND

For years, emergency response teams have relied on paper triage tags, clipboards of notes, and voice communications (radios) to share data at the disaster scene. This workflow, however, has proven labor intensive, time consuming, and prone to human error¹. In chaotic mass casualty incidents, medics often lack information necessary to treat patients.

METHODOLOGY

After developing a solid understanding of the needs of emergency care providers, we employed the latest technology to build a user-oriented solution. We observed paramedics in real response situations through 50 hours of job shadowing in Arlington County, VA, a large county near Washington DC². This development was performed iteratively with constant user feedback from demonstrations and interviews.

IMPLEMENTATION

The primary version of SIRP is a heavy client for full integration with portable devices designed to improve the efficiency of the following first responder tasks.

Secondary Triage

SIRP improves the process of reassessing and matching patients to resources by recording patient status, chief complaints, and treatments in the PDA using drop down lists and geo-locating patients using GPS. See Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Screenshots of triage and identification

Patient Identification

SIRP improves the process of recording patient identification and medical information by instantly recording complete patient demographics by scanning a driver’s license barcode or by keying in information. Medical history can also be entered and viewed later by the emergency department. For quick identification, SIRP also has provisions for taking patient photos. See Figure 1.

Patient Vital Signs Monitoring

SIRP provides a portable means of viewing real-time sensor readings of oxygen saturation, heart rate, and blood pressure over a five minute time span, identified by experts as the most crucial data in cases of trauma.

Mapping

Incident commanders can use the PDA to plan the spatial organization of the disaster scene and view all resources on scene, and communicate it quickly to the different first responder groups.

Treatment Record

Medics can enter treatment information when they administer drugs or perform a procedure on a patient on scene or at an auxiliary care center. Other medics may then view all past treatments, dosage of each, and when they were last administered.

Both versions are integrated into the AID-N network to provide patient and scene information to the emergency response community.