Successful Implementation of Web-based Medical Screening and Reporting Tools During an Urban Search and Rescue (US&R)...

This pilot study describes the design and field evaluation of web-based pre-deployment medical screening and health monitoring by the Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) branch of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

A review of US&R medical officers' (MOFR) and task force physicians' workflow identified web-based solutions. A Microsoft Forms tool (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington, USA) was utilized for pre-deployment medical screening. A web-based dashboard was developed for reporting task force daily Injury and Illness Logs, submission tracking, and syndromic surveillance.

The pre-deployment medical screening tool was completed by 100% of Incident Support Team (IST) members and took less than 4 minutes to complete. A post-deployment survey revealed that the new process was more efficient for the IST members and for the MOFRs in comparison to an in-person screen. Task force daily compliance with web-based Injury and Illness Log reporting was 84%. Successful syndromic surveillance was demonstrated and assisted in maintaining operational readiness. All tools were noted to be intuitive to use and were more efficient compared to prior workflows despite no advanced training in their use.

Web-based medical screening, reporting, and surveillance tools can be successfully implemented with high reporting adherence and improved workflow efficiency without prior training.