Abstract
BackgroundRegistration of data from a major incident or disaster serves several purposes such as to record data for evaluation of response as well as for research. Data needed can often be retrieved after an incident while other must be recorded during the incident. There is a need for a consensus on what is essential to record from a disaster response. The aim of this study was to identify key indicators essential for initial disaster medical response registration. By this is meant nationally accepted processes involved, from the time of the emergency call to the emergency medical communication centre until medical care is provided at the emergency department.MethodsA three round Delphi study was conducted. Thirty experts with a broad knowledge in disaster and emergency response and medical management were invited. In this study we estimated 30 experts to be approximately one third of the number in Sweden eligible for recruitment. Process, structure and outcome indicators for the initial disaster medical response were identified. These were based on previous research and expressed as statements and were grouped into eight categories, and presented to the panel of experts. The experts were instructed to score each statement, using a five point Likert scale, and were also invited to include additional statements. Statements reaching a predefined consensus level of 80% were considered as essential to register.ResultsIn total 97 statements were generated, 77 statements reached consensus. The 77 statements covered parts of all relevant aspects involved in the initial disaster medical response. The 20 indicators that did not reach consensus mostly concerned patient related times in hospital, types of support systems and security for health care staff.ConclusionsThe Delphi technique can be used for reaching consensus of data, comprising process, structure and outcome indicators, identified as essential for recording from major incidents and disasters.
Highlights
Registration of data from a major incident or disaster serves several purposes such as to record data for evaluation of response as well as for research
Statements on which the experts reached or did not reach consensus are shown in Tables 3 and 4
Round 1 After the first round, the experts generally agreed that data concerning the areas related to initial medical response management at the regional level and at the local level and type of incident, have an essential role in the activation of the disaster medical responses (DMR)
Summary
Registration of data from a major incident or disaster serves several purposes such as to record data for evaluation of response as well as for research. The aim of this study was to identify key indicators essential for initial disaster medical response registration By this is meant nationally accepted processes involved, from the time of the emergency call to the emergency medical communication centre until medical care is provided at the emergency department. There is a need for uniform data reporting of results from medical response management to major incidents (MIs) and disasters in order to make data available for evaluation, quality control, scientific analysis and development [1,2,3,4]. One reason for the delay in accepting an international standard is that there still is a lack of consensus on what DMR data is essential to serve the purposes mentioned above
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