Development of a Mass Casualty Triage Performance Assessment Tool

Abstract : The overall objective of this research was to develop a prototype measure of performance for a collective task; a more thorough description is provided in Curnow, Barney, Bryson, Keller-Glaze and Vowels (2015). To accomplish the objective, a collaborative effort was initiated with a U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) Military Police (MP) unit to select a task for metric development and then develop and refine a prototype measure for that task. Through collaboration between the research team and the unit, a need for measurement development involving the task of mass casualty triage was identified. Thus, we developed an assessment tool designed to measure the degree to which Soldiers could correctly triage injured civilians during a mass casualty training event. Based on a review of military and civilian literature regarding mass casualty triage and interviews with members of the unit, the triage assessment development involved three steps: (1) identification of key functions associated with mass casualty triage; (2) identification and categorization of subtasks for each task; and (3) review and conversion of tasks and/or subtasks into proper task statements. The Mass Casualty Triage Performance Assessment Tool is ARI Research Product 2015-02.