Abstract
Disasters constitute events which are catastrophic in nature. Such events critically threaten the health, safety, and lives of people and their environment (and even aspects of the global environment), and as a result, overwhelm the affected community’s emergency response capacity. Globally, a major disaster occurs almost daily. Consequently, disaster events are virtually an everyday fact of life. Emergency medical services constitute one important aspect of disaster responses. Those populations affected by disasters require a complete range of health services and the appropriate mechanism of delivery. In this respect, increasingly, information technology is playing a greater role. Disaster medicine has become more than merely a mass-casualty, and affected health response; the affected population’s needs are assessed, which range from medical requirements, to rapidly coordinating and providing casualty, routine, and preventive health services. These kinds of assessments are significantly more effective, given the appropriate deployment of current information technology.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Need-Driven Telemedicine: Information technology that is developed with the benefit of the community in mind, in relation to telemedicine.
Artificial Neural Networks: Computer systems (hardware and software) that “learn” by training on inputs, largely with pattern recognition as their basis of operation.
Hypermedia: Information types such as multimedia (combination and integration of text, image, video, and audio).
Telemedicine: Electronic communication and information technologies to provide or support clinical cases at a distance.
Medical Disaster Management: A disaster plan for medical disasters consisting of three phases: predisaster, disaster relief operations, and postdisaster rehabilitation.
Telehealth: Synonymous with telemedicine.