Learning from non-acceptance: Design dimensions for user acceptance of E-triage systems

As of 26 December 2016, seventeen electronic triage systems for disaster triage have been proposed in the ACM, IEEE, and ISCRAM publication databases. Most of these systems have remained inside the laboratory; the rest have disappeared entirely. Responders still prefer to do triage with paper tags from the 1960's, while no research has been presented on why the proposed e-triage systems have not found acceptance and use in the field. Based on exhaustive literature research and on the findings from the four-year long, EU research project BRIDGE, this paper presents e-triage acceptance dimensions, analyzes the main reasons why proposed systems have been rejected, and guides designers towards upcoming, well-accepted e-triage systems.