Resilience-based design of a hospital Emergency Department considering human behavior

Abstract

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