Simulation Analysis on the Post-Earthquake Congestion of an Emergency Department

Simulation Analysis on the Post-Earthquake Congestion of an Emergency Department

After a massive earthquake, the supply of medical services may fall short of the rising demand for treatment, leading to congestion in an emergency department (ED). In 2018, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake shook Hualien, on the eastern coast of Taiwan. A local hospital reported that an influx of patients with minor to moderate injuries congested the ED. Moreover, according to the official after-event summary report, over 90% of casualties fall in the categories of minor/moderate levels. These reports indicate that a sudden increase of patients with earthquakeinduced injuries that are relatively minor is a critical problem that needs to be tackled. In this study, we used discrete event simulation (DES) to investigate the state of an ED confronted with surging patient arrivals after massive earthquakes. The arrival rates of patients in our simulation were based on data from Chile. SimPy, a Python DES library, is utilized to perform the simulation with a patient flow model. The simulation is operated under the assumption that all equipment and resources are intact and functional. We discuss the influences of earthquake-induced lowacuity casualties on the performance of an ED in terms of (1) patient sojourn time, i.e., the period from arrival to exit, and (2) the total recovery time of an ED.