When paper fails
Traditional mass casualty triage uses coloured paper tags: red for immediate, yellow for delayed, green for minor, black for deceased. In chaotic disaster scenes, tags get wet, torn, lost, or misread. There is no way to track patient location, treatment status, or transport destination once the tag is attached. Incident commanders have no real-time picture of the situation.
Digital triage capabilities
- Electronic triage tags — NFC or RFID wristbands with unique IDs scanned at each checkpoint
- Automated scoring — vital signs input via mobile device, triage category calculated automatically (START, JumpSTART, SALT)
- Real-time dashboard — incident commander sees patient counts by category, location, and transport status
- Hospital coordination — receiving hospitals see incoming patient data before ambulance arrives
- Resource allocation — match patient needs to available ambulances, hospitals, and specialities
Offline-first design
Mass casualty events often damage communications infrastructure. Digital triage systems must work completely offline at the scene, syncing data when connectivity is restored. Edge devices at the incident site maintain the full patient database locally. This is not optional — it is a design requirement.
In a mass casualty event, information saves lives. Digital triage turns chaos into coordinated response.