Attitude of Rescue Service Personnel towards IT-Supported Management of Mass Casualty Incidents

Tine Adler and Lisa Jacob presented the first results of the GABEK-analysis at the VIII international GABEK Symposium which was held in Sterzing (Italy) from 4th to 6th October 2010. Within  the project: IT-supported management: e-triage, the paper-based triage and registration system at mass casualties (MCIs) should be replaced by an integrated satellite-based concept for electronic triage of affected persons. It is crucial that for the success of the joint research project that emergency personnel operating under extreme stress accept the new technology. The attitude towards technologies is influenced by personal failure, convenience and the ambiguity human vs. machine. The decision to accept the new techologies is determined by factors such as usability and first impression of the hardware. Relevant persons with and without experience using similar systems were interviewed. GABEK® WinRelan was used for analysis. Conceptual networks, causal graphs, relevancy lists and evaluation profiles enabled us to identify relevant topics and problems as well as aspects for designing the product (hard- and software). To achieve patient care at the best, it is necessary to use e-Triage System with reduced user-complexity.