Creation and Analysis of a Communication Network for the Emergency Services During a Mass Casualty Incident

Abstract

Mass casualty incidents are challenging situations for all involved. As usual in high responsibility teams and especially in these situations communication is of utmost importance. The thesis of this work is that at a MCI training communication meta data can be gathered and with it a communication network can be created and analyzed. This analysis is expected to show that the Leitender Notarzt (leading emergency physician) and the Organisatorischer Leiter Rettungsdienst (Organizational Head of EMS) are the most central roles within the communication network. For the data gathering process, a MCI training was held and two methods were used to get the data. One involved observer who accompanied different roles at the MCI and wrote down what they communicated, and the second method used geolocation trackers to find when people were within a certain communication distance. Then the program Gephi is used for the creation and analysis of the generated data. Only the observer protocol network gives the expected results. The geolocation network has different roles as the most central actors, but the LNA and OrgL follow behind them. The thesis shows that a communication network can be created and analyzed with different data gathering methods. It also shows that these gathering methods have to be refined to display communication closer to reality.