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A simple yet effective decision support policy for mass-casualty triage

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  • Mills, Alex F.

Abstract

In the aftermath of a mass-casualty incident, effective policies for timely evaluation and prioritization of patients can mean the difference between life and death. While operations research methods have been used to study the patient prioritization problem, prior research has either proposed decision rules that only apply to very simple cases, or proposed formulating and solving a mathematical program in real time, which may be a barrier to implementation in an urgent situation. We connect these two regimes by proposing a general decision support rule that can handle survival probability functions and an arbitrary number of patient classifications. The proposed survival lookahead policy generalizes not only a myopic policy and a cμ type rule, but also the optimal solution to a version of the problem with two priority classes. This policy has other desirable properties, including index policy structure. Using simple heuristic parameterizations, the survival lookahead policy yields an expected number of survivors that is almost as large as published methods that require mathematical programming, while having the advantage of an intuitive structure and requiring minimal computational support.

Suggested Citation

  • Mills, Alex F., 2016. "A simple yet effective decision support policy for mass-casualty triage," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 253(3), pages 734-745.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:253:y:2016:i:3:p:734-745
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2016.03.005
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Evin Uzun Jacobson & Nilay Tanık Argon & Serhan Ziya, 2012. "Priority Assignment in Emergency Response," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(4), pages 813-832, August.
    2. Alex F. Mills & Nilay Tanık Argon & Serhan Ziya, 2013. "Resource-Based Patient Prioritization in Mass-Casualty Incidents," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 15(3), pages 361-377, July.
    3. Dean, Matthew D. & Nair, Suresh K., 2014. "Mass-casualty triage: Distribution of victims to multiple hospitals using the SAVE model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 238(1), pages 363-373.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. O. H. Salman & A. A. Zaidan & B. B. Zaidan & Naserkalid & M. Hashim, 2017. "Novel Methodology for Triage and Prioritizing Using “Big Data” Patients with Chronic Heart Diseases Through Telemedicine Environmental," International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making (IJITDM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(05), pages 1211-1245, September.
    2. Marion S. Rauner & Helmut Niessner & Steen Odd & Andrew Pope & Karen Neville & Sheila O’Riordan & Lisa Sasse & Kristina Tomic, 2018. "An advanced decision support system for European disaster management: the feature of the skills taxonomy," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 26(2), pages 485-530, June.
    3. Farahani, Reza Zanjirani & Lotfi, M.M. & Baghaian, Atefe & Ruiz, Rubén & Rezapour, Shabnam, 2020. "Mass casualty management in disaster scene: A systematic review of OR&MS research in humanitarian operations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(3), pages 787-819.
    4. Alex F. Mills & Jonathan E. Helm & Yu Wang, 2021. "Surge Capacity Deployment in Hospitals: Effectiveness of Response and Mitigation Strategies," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 367-387, March.
    5. Glasgow, Simon M. & Perkins, Zane B. & Tai, Nigel R.M. & Brohi, Karim & Vasilakis, Christos, 2018. "Development of a discrete event simulation model for evaluating strategies of red blood cell provision following mass casualty events," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 270(1), pages 362-374.

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