A model-based analysis of evacuation strategies in hospital emergency departments

Abstract

Evacuation planning for emergency incidents is an essential preparedness for Emergency Departments (ED) which normally contains patients with severe illness and limited mobility. However, the preparedness can be challenging due to a lack of empirical data and difficulties conducting physical drills. We propose an agent-based model to simulate the evacuation process in the EDs containing medical staff, rescuers, visitors and various types of patients. In a case study, we apply the model to a peak hour scenario of the ED of the largest hospital in Singapore. Two rescue strategies with different behavior sequences of medical staff as suggested by the practitioners are evaluated. The simulation results show that prioritizing preparation of all the patients generates less total evacuation time but leads to fewer evacuated cases in the first 20 minutes and more serious congestion compared to one-by-one transfer of individual patients.