Wartime study shows regular drills protect hospital emergency responses
· News-MedicalRegular drills are crucial if a mass casualty plan is to work in a wartime situation. Focusing on staff safety in the plan itself and taking information flows into account are also important factors for success. These are the findings of a study from Linköping University published in the scientific journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.
Across a Europe that had long been spared war, many countries are now planning and building up their preparedness following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In war, hospitals and transports carrying injured people are increasingly being deliberately attacked, creating a major need to adapt emergency healthcare preparedness to this new reality.
Maximilian Nerlander is also a visiting scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Jerusalem, Israel.
Israel's healthcare system is similar to those in Western Europe, but unlike these, it has real wartime experience. Together with two other colleagues, Maximilian Nerlander has led a study on how the mass casualty plan at an Israeli hospital, Assuta Ashdod Public University Hospital, was affected during the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023.
"Drills mean that you function better under the extreme stress that arises during war and can carry out the work automatically. In a sudden war, there's no time to familiarise yourself with protocols and procedures; they have to be second nature," says Maximilian Nerlander, who works clinically as a lead physician at the emergency department at Växjö Hospital, Sweden.
The fact that the attacks took place during a major Jewish holiday, when many people were off work, was a vulnerability. According to the researchers, preparedness planning must therefore take account of periods of increased vulnerability, such as holidays when many people are off work.
The study was conducted together with Adam J. Rose at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, in Jerusalem, Israel, and Debra Gershov West at the Emergency Department, Samson Assuta Ashdod Medical Center in Ashdod, Israel. The study was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority and funded by Region Kronoberg.
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