Modeling and Simulation of In-Hospital Disaster Medicine in a Mass Casualty Event for the Resilience Evaluation of BCPs

In this study, we developed a simulation model of detailed in-hospital disaster response to a mass casualty incident based on the analysis of related docu-ments and actual in-hospital disaster response train-ing, aiming to assess the hospital’s response capacity under various disaster situations. This simulation model includes detailed models of patients, floor con-figurations, resources, and response tasks, which con-sider resource requirements for the treatment of different patients with various injuries and physical con-ditions. The model covers patients’ arrivals to hos-pitalization or discharge. We conducted simulations of the target hospital to test two resource allocation strategies under two patient scenarios. By comparing the results under different resource allocation strate-gies, we found that the X-ray photography examina-tion capacity could become a fundamental bottleneck in responding to mass casualty incidents. Also, we found that the appropriate resource allocations and quick replenishment could alleviate the negative effect of resource shortages and maintain a higher perfor-mance. Furthermore, the results show that the length of stay can be heavily affected by the patients’ config-uration. As a result, by monitoring and anticipating the situation, a resilient and responsive resource allocation strategy must be prepared to handle such uncertain disaster situations.