Towards a design space and guidelines for e-triage system design

Triage, the categorisation of disaster victims by priority of injuries, is currently performed manually. Triagers must quickly assess a victim in less than 45 seconds and move on to the next. Information in near-realtime is desirable, but reporting the state of the process and localizing the victims for following paramedics takes too long. Research in practical emergency response and literature reveals that, although technically feasible electronic triage systems have been proposed, none of them is truly accepted by end users or applied in the field. This work analyzes approaches from literature as well as extensive fieldwork from a four-year research process in the scope of emergency management. The result is a first set of dimensions for a design space for e-triage systems that allows the categorization, comparison, assessment of approaches against the dimensions, as well as ground for new design ideas.