Data collection in a live mass casualty incident simulation: automated RFID technology versus manually recorded...

To demonstrate the applicability and the reliability of a radio frequency identification (RFID) system to collect data during a live exercise.

A rooftop collapse of a crowded building was simulated. Fifty-three volunteers were trained to perform as smart victims, simulating clinical conditions, using dynamic data cards, and capturing delay times and triage codes. Every victim was also equipped with a RFID tag. RFID antenna was placed at the entrance of the advanced medical post (AMP) and emergency department (ED) and recorded casualties entering the hospital.

A total of 12 victims entered AMP and 31 victims were directly transferred to the ED. 100% (12 of 12 and 31 of 31) of the time cards reported a manually written hospital admission time. No failures occurred in tag reading or data transfers. A correlation analysis was performed between the two methods plotting the paired RFID and manual times and resulted in a r=0.977 for the AMP and r=0.986 for the ED with a P value of less than 0.001.

We confirmed the applicability of RFID system to the collection of time delays. Its use should be investigated in every aspect of data collection (triage, treatments) during a disaster exercise.