Pilot Study of a Simple Mass Casualty Tracking Application (MCTA)Tested at a High-Throughput Trauma Center

Abstract

Background:Efficient and accurate patient tracking during high-throughput situations is critical, especially for resource-limited medicine incurred during natural disasters, terrorist events, chemical threats and other mass casualty situations. Use of air traffic control practices modified to track patients shows promise in military medical applications. We tested a similar application in a busy, level 1 trauma center utilizing a system we call the Mass Casualty Tracking Application (MCTA). Methods: Third party surveyors compared current system to a system using MCTA on sixty four patients in July 2010. Four data points on paired patients were surveyed randomly each hour resulting in 56 total surveys with 50 useable. Written opinion comments were submitted by four staff members exposed to both systems. Results:Overall, MCTA had no significant difference in errors compared to FirstNet regarding patient data. Hospital staff exposed to both systems preferred FirstNet over MCTA due to familiarity. Hospital staff surveyed for comments on the MCTA indicated that they envisioned the system would be very useful for power outages and/or mass casualty incidents, for determining bottlenecks in patient flow, for tracking patients sent for imaging with useful prompting to seek out imaging read results and as a backup to FirstNet. Conclusions:MCTA in a busy trauma center is equivalent in its ability to track patients in this specific high-throughput system regarding data correctness/patient location. Though not designed as a replacement to electronic systems, MCTA is capable of performing this task and may be a useful asset for mass casualty events and/or as a backup system due to its “pen and ink” simplicity.