Heute die Möglichkeiten schaffen, um morgen die richtigen Antworten zu bekommen: Anmerkungen zum MIND3

With the implementation of the updated minimum emergency data set MIND3 in 2011, the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI) created a simplified and therefore more powerful tool for supraregional acquisition of prehospital emergency medical data and quality management. While discussing the adaptation, the working group of the Austrian Society for Anesthesiology, Resuscitation and Intensive Care Medicine (ÖGARI) raised the question for further usability of the data set, e.g. linkage to other health records or use for scientific purposes. Most important to achieve this goal is the possibility of data association and matching data sets. Data privacy protection laws prohibit use of individual patient data for register purposes. Although being a good tool for overall quality management, MIND3 especially fails in questions where it is crucial to handle an individual as a consistent entity without disclosing personally identifiable information. Future application spectrum seems to be limited. To facilitate higher performance, it is urgently necessary to define the further purposes of patient data recording and to develop safe technological solutions. Possible implementations on privacy protection politics have to be identified and discussed

Modeling effects of tidal barrier closure of Venice Lagoon

As a combined result of land subsidence and sea level rise in the vicinity of the City of Venice there has been a net decrease in the difference between the mean elevations of land and sea of about 30 centimetres over the past century. This has resulted in an increased incidence of flooding in Venice with occasional disastrous consequences, as in November 1966 when storm and tide conditions combined to flood the Piazza San Marco to depths exceeding one metre. Among the solutions proposed to solve the flooding problem is a modular tidal barrier that is designed to close the three major entrances to the shallow lagoon in which Venice is situated. Because the lagoon is highly eutrophic and circulation is driven primarily by the tide in the Adriatic Sea, there is concern that operation of the barriers could exacerbate an already serious problem of pollution. The lagoon currently receives the untreated waste water from Venice with an organic loading equivalent to more than 400,000 persons during the tourist season, industrial discharges from the Port of Marghera, and non-point accretions of nutrients from adjacent agricultural areas. Preliminary investigation of the effects of the proposed barrier scheme using mathematical hydrodynamic and water quality models suggests that prolonged isolation of the lagoon from the sea, if this should become necessary for flood protection, may enhance primary production and induce unfavorable water quality conditions. This paper presents results of this investigation and offers suggestions for further refinement and application of the models to assist in the environmental impact assessment which must be performed prior to barrier construction