(D40) Development of Medical Hazardous Material Database for a Chemical Disaster

Abstract

Introduction:

Although there is information about hazardous materials and related activity during hazardous material accidents, chemical disasters, or chemical terrorism, it is not comprehensive, cannot be accessed easily, and is not sufficient for the specific situation, as in a toxic accident in a household or chemical accident in industry. Additionally, the information is not prepared for the emergency medical response in general. The authors developed a comprehensive database system for medical hazardous materials and assessed the application of the system.

Methods:

A questionnaire was answered by 534 persons who are hazardous materials-related workers, experts, or laypersons about the necessary contents of the database and the methods of application. Forty-six database fields were developed relating to chemical accidents and hazardous materials, the most important contents were extracted through a four-stage process. The database fields were prioritized in 19 classification groups based on an existing database and our survey.

Results:

There were 111 chemicals that were determined to be most necessary to include in the database. The final classification of database fields was eight groups. A Website was constructed of the resulting database for real application.

Conclusions:

Although it has become possible to provide emergency information about chemical accidents, terrorism, or disaster, comprehensive information from the accident site to hospital still is needed for a quicker response, such as die identification of chemicals. The next step will be developing an information-providing system using mobile devices.