Keeping Communications Flowing During Large-scale Disasters Leveraging Amateur Radio Innovations for Disaster Medicine

The authors describe a prototype communications system created by the National Library of Medicine for health care facilities when traditional communication systems are down. Based on amateur radio, the system can provide email services to users and reach communication networks outside of the disaster area. This solution draws on the characteristics of amateur radio, including that it is inexpensive, always available, and does not rely on telecommunications infrastructure.