The American College Of Surgeons Creates Case Log For Surgeries Performed In Haiti
My friends at the American College of Surgeons’ Operation Giving Back have come up with a really smart strategy to collect as much information as possible about surgical cases in Haiti. Thanks to a new data collecting tool, every surgeon who volunteers in Haiti can contribute to this case log. The potential result will be one of the most comprehensive registers of surgical care in a disaster situation. Depending on what we find, I think that this data could make a big difference in preparing surgical responses for future missions.
This is an example of crowd-sourcing at its best.
Here is a summary statement from ACS:
We’ve put together a simple and streamlined tool people can use in the field or when they return that they can use to track and report their surgical cases. We have a case log system in place already for College members and we’ve expanded it to make it open to non-members as well.
Non-ACS members can register at https://acspbls.resiliencesoftware.com/Haiti-registration. The system
will automatically add Haiti as a location, and surgeons can start adding cases right away.
ACS members who have used the case log system before can log into: https://acspbls.resiliencesoftware.com/ (ACS members who have not registered to use the case log system can register at http://acscaselogregister.org/). Once logged in, members can add “Haiti” as a location for cases associated with relief activities.
The system currently works with both Palm and PocketPC phones, and iPhone and Blackberry editions will be released in the next 1-2 weeks. We feel this will be a useful system for folks on the ground and we’d love it if
you could post this information and pass this out to other bloggers. This is available to all surgeons and your blogs and networks will be a great means of communicating this to a wider audience.
I asked how the ACS would reduce the likelihood of duplication of surgical reports in the log–they responded:
The best way to avoid duplicate reports is for users to enter as much information as possible, particularly the patient’s name and the surgeon’s role in the case. The system is secure so users should feel safe entering that data.
Please pass on this information to anyone who assisted with surgical cases in Haiti.
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