Title: Optimal displacement of a mobile telemedicine unit in an urban disaster scenario

Authors: J. Puentes, L. Pigeon, R. Proulx, A. Bergeron-Guyard, D. Belanger

Addresses: Institut TELECOM, TELECOM Bretagne, INSERM, U650 LaTIM, Departement Image et Traitement de l'Information, Brest, France. ' Defense Research and Development Canada, 2459 Pie-XI North, Quebec City (QC), G3J 1X5 Canada. ' Thales Canada, 1 Chrysalis Way, Ottawa (ON), K2G 6P9, Canada. ' Defense Research and Development Canada, 2459 Pie-XI North, Quebec City (QC), G3J 1X5 Canada. ' Thales Canada, 1 Chrysalis Way, Ottawa (ON), K2G 6P9, Canada

Abstract: Mobile telemedicine systems could improve disaster scenario medical response, serving to cope partly with the crucial insufficiency of resources. Mobility is useful to provide the essential remotely assisted care to victims where they were found, in addition to evacuate them. Deciding mobile units| intervention adds to the complexity of disaster response coordination. This paper reports on our research work for the development of a geographic aware application that we propose to use as a decision-support tool to optimise mobile unit displacements in dynamic environments. Four simulated scenarios were used to test the system anticipation capacity to face evolving threat conditions (toxic cloud dispersion). Results show how the trajectories are flexibly adjusted according to identified constraints.

Keywords: mobile telemedicine units; threat management; disaster scenarios; optimal path; graphs; emergency management; disaster response; e-health; electronic healthcare; healthcare technology; medical response; remotely assisted care; remote healthcare.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2009.021907

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2009 Vol.2 No.1, pp.44 - 73

Published online: 09 Dec 2008 *

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