The Evaluation of the World Health Organization’s Minimum Dataset in Disaster Health Management in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations

Abstract

Introduction:

The Minimum Data Set (MDS) developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) has been widely used among medical practitioners in International Emergency Medical Team (I-EMT) as tools to collect health information and statistics in disaster health management. The I-EMT submits MDS to the Emergency Medical Team Coordination Cell (EMTCC) for the planning of responses. The Project for Strengthening the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Capacity on Disaster Health Management (ARCH Project) is the ASEAN’s project that has applied MDS to its activities with the main purpose of strengthening informational management during a disaster.

Aim:

The study aims to evaluate the performance of MDS after being utilized in the Regional Collaboration Drill (RCD) organized by the ARCH Project in July 2017.

Methods:

The performance of MDS has been evaluated by ten International Emergency Medical Team (I-EMT) of ASEAN Member States who participated in the RCD.

Results:

The assessment forms were returned by ten I-EMTs, and all respondents addressed several points for the revision of MDS (10/10), including the format and the content of the MDS. Concerning the format, respondents stated that the fonts are too small (3/10), and spaces for recording additional information are needed (3/10). On the other hand, the majority of respondents suggested that some of the contents within the MDS are still unclear or some terminologies are needed to be further clarified (6/10), especially with the referral form (5/10).

Discussion:

The current version of the MDS utilized for the EMT coordination should be edited and revised for its optimal usage. Applying MDS to disaster simulation is an efficient approach to test its application.