Confronting Catastrophic Disasters With 21St Century Technologies

The unfolding tragedy in the Bahamas demonstrates that the 21st century will be marked by increasingly frequent, often catastrophic disasters of unprecedented scope and scale. Yet again, the unprecedented challenges of disaster management are being met with mostly conventional, labor-intensive, costly, and often inadequately slow response efforts. These 21st-century threats, particularly those that affect livelihood, health, and well-being, deserve the application of 21st-century technologies...

Aerial images of Hurricane Dorian's devastation of the Bahamas began circulating Tuesday. (Photo-Our News via Travis C-Carroll/Twitter)Under the current conditions in the Bahamas, a top priority should be the real-time deployment of a robust information management and communications platform to support vital health security efforts. Technologies that permit the self-sorting of potentially ill, injured or infected populations via the use of wearables, sensors and other biometric devices would be critical to direct the right resources to the disaster victims who need them most.

Applications of artificial intelligence and computer vision technologies to aid clinical triage and diagnostics could help ensure that scarce resources are preserved and given to those most in need. Robust telehealth and telemedicine connectivity could be used to provide healthcare consultations to an isolated or mobile population needing urgent assistance. Technologies that support efficiencies in vital supply chains, and the potential to synthetically create alternatives to scarce resources, also would be critical and valuable...