Information Harvesting and Integrating of Mass Casualty Incidents and Epidemic Outbreaks via Social Media

Information Harvesting and Integrating of Mass Casualty Incidents and Epidemic Outbreaks via Social Media

In order to discern the condition of incidents, it is essential to collect accurate and timely disaster and epidemic information in a robust and reliable manner, particularly in a mass casualty incident (MCI). The concept of a Joint Professional Group (JPG) is proposed to enhance data accuracy and precision. In this case, the JPG comprises campus disaster experts distributed in all munic¬ipalities and counties of Taiwan. Since they have geographical advantages, they can promptly respond to and report disaster infor¬mation in real-time. Amidst the vast amount of disaster information during an MCI, the information provided by the JPG can serve as the standard for chelating the truth on social media. Since decision‐makers, emergency responders, and even stakeholders need to retrieve real‐time, reliable, safe, and comprehensive information for patient rescuing and caring, the information sourced from the JPGs can be a benchmark for consolidating accurate data and filtering out misinformation. The JPGs will be a potential arbiter of the collected data by extracting reliable utilities from a cluttered information pool. Therefore, the collaboration between social media and JPGs will significantly boost the dissemination of disaster information in a robust, comprehensive, and real‐time manner.