Dynamic Allocation Strategies for Medical Teams in the First Hours after Mass Casualty Incidents

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran.

Abstract

Allocating a limited number of relief teams to casualties immediately after a disaster is a challenging task embedded in the casualty management process. This paper proposes several dynamic strategies for allocating teams to casualty groups right after a sudden-onset disaster in order to maximize the expected number of survivors. In the proposed strategies, serious triage groups and the deterioration of the physical condition of injured people are considered. The ratio of casualties in red and yellow triage groups, and the treatment rates and survival probabilities are the main parameters in the strategies. Then, a case study is employed to demonstrate the validity of the proposed model. The strategies are compared based on the summation of the ratio of survivors in two triage groups. This comparison shows that the saving rate can be an appropriate ratio for allocating medical teams to casualty groups. Sensitivity analysis evaluates the impact of key parameters on the model results. Accordingly, changes in the ratio of triaged people have less impact on the ratio of survivors than changes in the treatment rates. It demonstrates the importance of relief teams’ allocation for surviving the casualties.

Keywords


 
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