The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is looking to integrate automated patient tracking capability into its emergency first responder training at the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP). In the next six month, the mobile-compatible software will be rolled out to serve as a valuable tool for incident response.

“We’re incorporating software that can be used on a majority of smart devices found on the commercial market today,” Jesse Giddens, the CDP healthcare training manager, said to GCN.com. “These devices allow students to input and record emergency casualty care data into an automated patient tracking system.”

Using barcode scanning on triage patient tags, the software will be able to track and identify patients as they are moved through the emergency medical process, from where they are injured to a hospital treatment facility. This in turn should enable emergency response teams to better manage resources during large disaster response incidents, while making sure patients are provided the correct medication and treatment.

The barcode data can include everything from a patient’s name, injuries and treatment to other important case information as well as house photos of the injury.