Communication system, apparatus and method providing mass casualty incident registry service
A system, method and apparatus provide a self-registration service to potential victims located in proximity to an incident event. An incident-specific URL is pushed to communication devices located in proximity to the incident. The incident-specific URL links to a self-registration website that enables victims to upload their health related information. The incident-specific URL and self-registration website enables identifying potential victims along with their health status for tracking during a mass casualty incident (MCI). The service may further include providing self-triage information and the tracking of “self-help” victims, with minor injuries. The service can further exchange information with health service providers (HSPs) to facilitate patient tracking and status updates.
1 . A communication system, comprising:
a plurality of cell phone communication devices operating over a public internet portal;
a plurality of public safety radios communicatively coupled to a computer aided dispatch (CAD) system operating over a private network, wherein the plurality of public safety radios operate over a private wireless radio network under control of private radio infrastructure including at least one base station and a controller;
a mass casualty incident response system (MCI-RS) integrated with the CAD system, the MCI-RS pushing new incident notifications including an incident-specific URL linked to a self-registration website to the plurality of cell phone communication devices, wherein the self-registration website is configured to receive self-registration information from newly registered devices and store the self-registration information in a victim database associated with the MCI-RS; and
a plurality of health service providers (HSPs) exchanging information with the MCI-RS over a secure internet connection, wherein the secure internet connection comprises a secure communication path unique to each HSP and based on HSP communication security credentials used for HSP authentication.
2 . The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the MCI-RS pushes the new incident notifications with incident-specific URL to the plurality of communication devices over one of:
a cellular network; and
via short range communications from a public safety radio or public safety computer in proximity to the cell phone communication devices.
3 . The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the self-registration website includes health queries and a user interface for responding to the health queries via each cell phone communication devices of the plurality of cell phone communication devices.
4 . The communication system of claim 3 , wherein the self-registration website further includes self-triage information and self-triage queries.
5 . The communication system of claim 4 , wherein self-registration website health query responses and triage responses are retrieved by the MCI-RS and analyzed for periodic incident report generation.
6 . The communication system of claim 5 , wherein the periodic incident report generation is provided from the MCI-RS to the plurality of HSPs.
7 . The communication system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a first database for storing health service provider operational parameters pertaining to each of the plurality of HSPs; and
a second database for storing patient information of pre-registered users and patient information of self-registered users associated with the new incident.
8 . The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the MCI-RS exchanges communications with the HSPs to determine:
current HSP operational parameters;
patient information of registered victims; and
general status information of patients not registered with the self-registration website.
9 . The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the self-registration website collects personal identifiable information (PII) pertaining to self-registered users.
10 . The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the MCI-RS pushes the incident notification to emergency contacts in response to:
a self-registered user being associated with the new incident; and
the self-registered user entering or leaving an HSP of the plurality of HSPs associated with the new incident.
11 . The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the self-registration website is part of an MCI response registry architecture that (i) is incident-instance specific and (ii) functions to collect newly registered device/user information and support exchange with HSPs.