forecast: the injured are on the way

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A new system that has been developed for Rambam Health Care Campus (RHCC) ‘guesses’ the number of people likely to be injured in a mass casualty event. This allows hospital medical teams to ready themselves appropriately to receive the wounded

Writer: Roberta Neiger, ProText

This novel information system, developed by a group of students from the Technion’s Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management developed for Rambam Health Care Campus (RHCC) provides a real picture of mass casualty events. “The students developed a formula that helps us predict the number of injured people who will arrive at our department in the next immediate hour, based on the number of arrivals in the previous hour,” said Dr. Shlomi Israelit, Director of the Department of Emergency and Urgent Care at Rambam.

Injured victims of the Carmel fire arrive at Rambam. Dr. Shlomi Israelit in the center of the photo.
Pioter Fliter-RHCC.©

This information allows the medical team to plan how it can operate most efficiently in the case of a mass casualty event. For example, it points out the best possible way to allocate personnel and equipment. “If a wave of injured patients is expected to arrive, for instance, we will not release staff members to go home,” said Dr. Israelit. “We may even bring in reinforcements from their homes or from other facilities.”

A mass casualty event is defined as a situation in which the demand for medical care exceeds the ability to supply it. Thus, the quality of care is compromised, and more people are injured than can be treated.

The Technion group focused on a chemical weapon attack that could harm a large population. Today, the command room receives inexact data on the numbers of wounded, information is not readily available to the medical team, and it is difficult to judge how the situation will unfold. The student innovation offers information about numbers of both wounded patients and medical staff reliably and in real time. It also predicts how many people will be injured during an event.

The system was tested on 49 “injured” subjects half a year ago in a large-scale drill, which proved its readiness. The students also incorporated the experience of the Israeli delegation to Haiti, after last year’s earthquake. That delegation of 230 people treated some 1,100 injured Haitians in ten days. To make crucial decisions, the delegation created a four-doctor team that addressed such questions as: how urgent is the patient’s condition? Are there sufficient resources with which to treat the patient? What is the patient’s chance of survival as a result of treatment?

Learning from these lessons, the students were able to fine-tune their system into a useful medical tool. And while the system is still undergoing tests, Dr. Israelit is confident it will make a vital contribution. “This project has proven that it is possible to create a model that helps us plan how to cope with mass casualty events,” he commented.