Emergency medical care in Pakistan remains uncoordinated due to the absence of a platform to connect hospitals, patients, and ambulances. Consequently, during periods of resource shortage and crowding of the emergency department at hospitals, patients and ambulances are unable to select the best site for patient management or transfer of patients, resulting in suboptimal care and poor outcomes.

We developed a digital platform called EMCON (Emergency Connection) application, which can be used for inter-hospital and hospital-to-patient/ambulance communication to coordinate patient care. The platform offers real-time information on resource availability, facilitates interhospital patient transfers, coordinates ambulance responses, and assists patients in making decisions about seeking emergency care.

The platform offers real-time information on resource availability, facilitates interhospital patient transfers, coordinates ambulance responses, and assists patients in making decisions about seeking emergency care. It has a range of features that allow hospitals to control the data that they share to maintain hospital buy-in, incorporates both electronic and manual data entry for real-time updates in low-resource settings or during electronic medical record disruption, and provides visual content and appointment scheduling services to keep patients engaged.

The pilot testing of the EMCON platform yielded promising outcomes, highlighting its adaptability and effectiveness in diverse health care settings. Integration with an electronic medical record (EMR)-equipped tertiary hospital demonstrated seamless real-time data updates, ensuring efficient resource management and coordination. Meanwhile, the successful implementation at a resource-reliant blood bank underscored EMCON’s versatility, allowing manual data entry for hospitals without EMR systems. These results emphasize the platform’s practicality and potential to revolutionize emergency health care access in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). EMCON’s ability to bridge coordination gaps and enhance resource allocation holds great promise for improving patient outcomes, particularly in resource-constrained settings.

EMCON serves as a promising solution to address critical coordination issues in emergency care, bridging the gap between hospitals, patients, and ambulances to improve emergency health care access in low-resource settings.

This study explored Italian Emergency Medical Services (EMS) professionals’ perceptions regarding a hypothetical wearable device during Mass Casualty Incidents (MCIs), aiming to improve MCI management and patient outcomes. The device includes patient identifier, vital sign monitoring, LED-based triage coding, geolocation, and real-time data transmission. Using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and behavioral intention to use the device were measured.

An anonymous online survey was distributed to the 67 EMS dispatch centers across Italy. After an introduction to the device, participants answered demographic and TAM-based questions using a seven-point scale.

Among the 141 respondents, most were males (60.3%), nurses (66.7%), and reported over 10 years of EMS experience (63.1%); 51.8% had prior MCI response experience. The wearable device was positively rated for improving situational awareness and coordination, with concerns about workflow integration and potential rescue delays. The questionnaire showed high internal reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.96). Principal Component Analysis (PCA) highlighted distinct perceptions between features supporting scene coordination and those enhancing triage accuracy.

The study highlights the perceived value of the wearable in improving MCI coordination and situational awareness. However, concerns regarding workflow integration and possible rescue delays warranted further research on real-world application.

The aim was to document sociodemographic and clinical data of patients with musculoskeletal injuries who applied to the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation clinic after the earthquake, to share experiences, and thus contribute to preparation for subsequent disasters.

The study was planned as retrospective, cross-sectional, and analytic. A total of N = 230 earthquake victims, 105 (45.7%) males and 125 (54.3%) females, aged between 1 and 79, were included in our study.

Regarding injury location, the lower extremity was primarily affected with N = 125 (54.3%). The number of amputated patients was N = 29 (12.6%), and the most common location was transfemoral amputation with N = 14 (6.1%) patients. The number of fractures was N = 130 (56.5%), and the most common fracture site was the lower extremity in N = 66 (28.7%) patients. N = 162 (70.4%) of the patients had soft tissue injuries. There was peripheral nerve damage in N = 76 (33%) of the earthquake victims; the most frequently damaged nerve was the peroneal nerve in N = 36 (15.7%) patients. A vertebral fracture was present in N = 9 (3.9%) patients, and the most frequently fractured vertebra was the lumbar vertebra in 11 (4.8%) patients.

Defining the profiles of patients with musculoskeletal injuries in the early period, determining their needs, and including them in the rehabilitation program will ensure successful functional gain.

The January 2025 Los Angeles wildland-urban interface wildfires represent a significant environmental disaster, resulting in widespread evacuations. Beyond the immediate physical and economic devastation, wildfires can have profound and lasting impacts on the mental well-being of affected populations. This study compared mental health outcomes between Southern California residents who evacuated due to the fires and those who did not evacuate.

Southern California residents (N = 739) were surveyed 2-3 months after the January 2025 wildfires. Logistic regression models assessed the association of evacuation status with depression, anxiety, and PTSD, adjusting for demographics and baseline pre-fire levels of depression and anxiety.

Evacuating was significantly associated with higher odds of depression (AOR = 1.75 [1.08-2.85]) and PTSD (AOR = 2.44 [1.36-4.35]), after controlling for pre-fire mental health status and other demographic covariates. Evacuation status was not associated with anxiety.

These findings support previous research linking wildfire exposure to adverse mental health outcomes and highlight the importance of targeted mental health screening and support for wildfire evacuees, who are at increased risk for depression and PTSD.