Challenge Patient Dispatching in Mass Casualty Incidents

Abstract

Efficient management of mass casualty incidents is complex, since regular emergency medical services structures have to be switched to a temporary “disaster mode” involving additional operational and tactical struc-tures. Most of the relevant decisions have to be taken on-site in a provisional and chaotic environment. Data gathering about affected persons is one side of the coin; the other side is on-site patient dispatching requiring information exchange with the regular emergency call center and destination hospitals. In this paper we extend a previous conference contribution about the research project e-Triage to the aspect of patient data and on-site patient dispatching. Our considerations reflect the situation in Germany, which deserves from our point of view substantial harmonization.