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The admission of a large number of victims in a hospital after a mass casualty incident can easily lead to chaos and disruption of the hospital's regular organization. To ensure that this chaos does not continue, a correct way of registration and continuous overview of registered patients can be very helpful. The Emergency Hospital, which is part of the University Medical Centre Utrecht and the Central Military Hospital, was confronted several times with groups of patients who had to be admitted immediately. A computerized system was developed using bar codes of the International Article Numbering Association. The Commanding Team uses this system to overview the situation continuously. The system also registers urgency classes and primary diagnoses. It appeared that fewer errors were made in comparison with manual registration, while more information was stored and easily retrievable. Pilot studies are being performed to extend the usefulness of this method in a prehospital environment.

Hospital resolution of mass casualty incidents can have difficulties involving "command and control" and information management, ineffective use of triage classes, and missed diagnostic procedures, leading to lower quality of care. A computer system has been developed to supply continuously updated group and patient data. The system uses barcoded identifiers to represent patients, injuries, facilities, and locations, in order to minimize errors and make exchange of data possible. The system communicates with the permanent hospital information system. This article reports the use of this technology during several experiments and real incidents. Computer registration based on bar codes, despite the greater number of items entered, still showed 25% fewer inaccuracies when compared with handwritten medical charts. Extensive training was shown to be unnecessary. Paramedical personnel judged the automated procedures to be an improvement during the admission of 143 evacuated patients.