Patient Tracking
In any large-scale disaster with multiple victims, emergency responders use a triage system to evaluate each patient’s injuries, prioritize treatment and provide transport to medical facilities for those who need it. MARCER is coordinating new electronic patient tracking system will facilitate that process for emergency responders and hospitals in the region.
MARC’s Regional Homeland Security Coordinating Committee contracted with Disaster Management Solutions, Inc., to develop triage tags with bar codes that hold detailed information about each patient. Using these tags, special barcode scanners and wireless communications systems, emergency responders on the scene of a mass-casualty incident can efficiently and accurately track the number of injured, as well as the status and location of each victim.
The data from scanned triage tags is communicated to hospitals through EMSystem, a real-time communications and resource management system already in use in the region. Hospitals use EMSystem to keep emergency medical services personnel informed on their emergency room status and number of available patient beds. The patient tracking system will alert hospitals to the number of incoming patients and their condition. It will also make it easier for hospitals to help families locate their loved ones in a mass-casualty incident.
In August 2005, representatives from MARC, Johnson County MedAct and five area hospitals — Overland Park Regional Medical Center, Shawnee Mission Medical Center, Menorah Medical Center, Saint Luke’s South Hospital, and Olathe Medical Center — tested the newly developed electronic patient tracking system as a component of a larger training exercise.
During the exercise, role-playing “patients” were divided into two groups: those who arrived at the hospitals by ambulance and those who walked in under their own power. Triage tags for the patients had various degrees of completion to test how well the system tracks and updates information coming from different locations, including the scene of the incident, the ambulance and the hospital. More than 120 “patients” were tracked using the new system.
The patient tracking project began in June 2004 and covers MARC’s eight-county, 116-municipality region. Participating emergency response agencies include 30 hospitals and 40 EMS providers. Other organizations, such as the Greater Kansas City Chapter of the American Red Cross, are also involved in the planning process.
Equipment to rollout the program was shipped in the spring of 2006. Patient tracking training is currently being held for hospitals and EMS agencies in the region.
