How to improve situation assessment and decision-making in a simulated mass casualty incident by using an unmanned aerial vehicle

Background Situation assessment and decision-making is challenging in the complex task environment of pre-hospital critical care. Human attention is a limited resource, critical information is often missing and cues in the situation may be misinterpreted, misdiagnosed or ignored. We evaluated the feasibility of using a remotely piloted unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to gather information from the air in order to support decision-making in a simulated major incident.