Organizational model of an emergency department under seismic event

The paper presents a hospital testbed which aims to help the earthquake engineering community moving another step toward the realization and implementation of resilience-based design strategies for health care facilities. An organizational model describing the response of the Hospital Emergency Department (ED) has been implemented using a discrete events simulation model (DES). The waiting time is the main response parameter used to evaluate the resilience index of healthcare facilities during earthquakes. A metamodel has been developed from the DES model for different emergency codes considering the amplitude of the seismic input and the number of resources available right after the seismic event. Results show that, when an earthquake corresponding to 2% probability of exceedance in 50 year strikes, generating a seismic wave of injured patients going to the ED, the average peak patient waiting time is around 13 hours when an emergency plan is not applied, regardless the type of code considered. If the ED is damaged and emergency rooms are not functional the average waiting time can increase dramatically and the ED is not able to provide the proper service