When disaster strikes, we expect hospitals and first-response units to react quickly and efficiently. This is a pretty lofty expectation. How do hospitals prepare for emergencies, knowing that lives will be on the line? The answer may soon be, “With the help of Johns Hopkins!”
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins National Center for the Study of Preparedness and Catastrophic Event Response, or PACER, have developed three new software programs that are designed to help hospitals model and prepare for different types of emergencies. The software is all Web-based, meaning that they will work anywhere that has internet access. The names of the applications are EMCAPS 2.0, Surge and FluCast.
EMCAPS stands for Electronic Mass Casualty Assessment and Planning Scenarios, and EMCAPS 2.0 is an update to the original software. It was developed by Jim Scheulen, a researcher employed by PACER. EMCAPS 2.0 has a revised, easy-to-use interface and can model 11 different scenarios that have been classified as disasters by the Department of Homeland Security.
The scenarios include an anthrax attack, an improvised explosive device, an open-air explosion, food contamination, mustard gas, nerve gas, a toxic gas release, an explosion on public transportation, a nuclear device explosion, pneumonic plague and a pandemic. The program estimates the number and types of injuries that these disasters would create, allowing hospitals to be better prepared.
The second new app, Surge, was developed by the director of PACER, Gabor D. Kelen, M.D. Surge is designed for use by hospitals, intensive-care units and other care units like pediatrics wards. This app was designed to help guide these places when there is a massive influx of new patients, such as during a public emergency. Amongst other things, Surge can simulate bed needs, how to move patients efficiently to open rooms and how to plan discharges so that hospitals know how to best allocate their resources.
The last new app developed is named FluCast. FluCast specifically looks at the flu and tries to estimate how many new cases a certain hospital can expect to see in a given week. It was developed by Richard Rothman and Andrea Dugas. Rothman is a professor and vice chair for research in the Department of Emergency Medicine, while Dugas is an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine.
FluCast recruits the data it uses for its estimations from a specific hospital’s historical data and Google Flu Trends. Google Flu Trends is a website that uses data from the searches that people make on Google in order to predict flu activity. It is updated every day in order to be as accurate as possible and provides data for flu activity worldwide. The creators of FluCast hope that it will allow hospitals to plan ahead for times when there might be a multitude of new flu cases, by increasing staffing, for example.
The new software was developed with support from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate Office of University programs. They were featured in the DHS’s University Centers of Excellence Innovation Showcase. The showcase was held Feb. 11 at the Immigration Customs and Enforcement headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The applications are available for free on the PACER website but all users must create an account. You can learn more about the software and register to use it at www.pacerapps.org.
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