Computer Modeling Can Help Trauma Centers Respond, Expert Says

Can a computer-modeling program make trauma centers more efficient in the wake of a disaster? A New York professor says he’s created one that can.

According to an article by Marilyn Silverstein on the NJJN website, Dr. Asher Hirshberg, a professor of surgery at SUNY-Downstate College of Medicine in Brooklyn, New York, made the comments at a New Jersey University.

Silverstein says Hirshberg “focused on the use of computer-modeling — in particular, a computer program he has dubbed ‘Bloody Mayhem 2.0’ — to heighten the efficiency of trauma centers in caring for critically injured patients in the wake of a mass disaster.”

Hirshberg says these simulations can help emergency medical professionals understand where the traffic jams are as mass casualty patients are moved through the hospital system and can predict a hospital’s capacity to handle the sudden surge of patients in a mass casualty event.

“It’s to project what the medical and trauma care needs are in mass casualty incidents in hospitals — to project and predict as a means of improving hospital preparedness,” Hirshberg told Silverstein.