Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
the gathering of the required information. In this section it is introduced a new applica-
tion based on mobile agents for retrieving partial information of medical records upon
request from the emergency scene. This solution fits well with a mobile ad hoc net-
work environment with asynchronous communications provided by mobile agents. The
proposed system allows to request remote hospitals for critical information about the
victims, such as allergies or infectious diseases, thus facilitating more accurate diagno-
sis and bringing forward decision making.
4.1
Introduction
When an emergency occurs, especially in mass casualty incidents, lots of victims need
medical attention. Researchers agree that the fast and accurate acquisition and analysis
of data, the more effective the answer can be given. That is, the needs will be supplied
as soon as possible and the affected population will be reduced. The common point
in all cases is the analysis of information. Around it lies the importance of respond-
ing to the emergency. Furthermore, information revolves around all stages of disaster:
preparation, planning, training, response, recovery and evaluation. [47].
The first responder medical personnel stabilizes the victim before they can be evacu-
ated to a hospital. After it is stabilized, the victim is transferred to a hospital. Normally,
while the victim is being stabilized or transferred, the medical personnel search for
victim's personal items that could identify them. Discovering who the victim is it is
important since with this information, important medical information about the patient
can be retrieved from a Virtual Electronic Patient Medical Record (VEPMR) solution,
which makes available from any medical institution all the existing medical information
about a patient.
The objective of this system is to make VEPMRs available in the emergency scene.
This could improve the medical assistance of the victim, since the victim's blood type,
chronic and contagious diseases, and so on, can be rapidly obtained. Furthermore, the
hospitals can be prepared for the victim's arrival, e.g., special attentions, resources, and
so forth.
When incidents like hurricanes, floodings or tsunamis occurs, most communication
networks are normally disrupted, being an obvious handicap for quick and coordinated
assistance. Some projects propose deploying antennas to have communication networks
in all the emergency scene [28]. Others propose using sensor or ad-hoc networks for
communication inside the emergency scene [19][41].
We could use any of these systems to make true the VEPMR retrieval from the emer-
gency scene. But, our goal is going a step forward proposing the use of mobile agents
on ad-hoc networks to forward requests of VEPMRs to the medical network. This al-
lows the retrieval of the patient's medical record in the place where the emergency has
occurred.
4.2
Background
This section describes the state of the art of applications dedicated to emergency man-
agement and those that propose solutions to face the lack of infrastructure in the emer-
gency scene.
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