Computer-simulated assessment of methods of transporting severely injured individuals in disaster - Case study of an airport accident

A system utilizing computer simulations was developed in order to compare (1) situations wherein critically wounded individuals are, at first, ranked and classified into subgroups based on criticalness of the wounds, and then be evaluated and re-ordered within the subgroups before transported to hospitals, with (2) those situations in which the conventional method of transport was employed. The objective of the study is to infer whether there is a further possibility for enhancing the possibility of the wounded individual's survival rate at the time of arrival at the hospital. The variables that are required to be entered include the number of patient subgroups, the number of patients in each of the subgroups, the total number of patients to be transported, the time required to assess the severity of each patient, the speed of the ambulance, the interval between the ambulances' arrivals and departures, and the distance between the site at which the transportation begins and the destination or the hospital. Utilizing the same system, a virtual simulation of a large-scale disaster at airport was used as sample data. As a result, it was confirmed that the survival rate would improve under certain conditions, if the values for some of the variables, such as geographic conditions, were altered and then calculated. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.