Major Incident Hospital Simulations in Hospital Based Health Care: A Scoping Review

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Emergency Medicine
• Healthcare Simulation

Background:

• Major incidents increasingly stress healthcare systems.
• Simulation is a common tool for evaluating and improving health system response capacity.
• Evaluating simulation effectiveness for major incidents presents challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a scoping review of studies on whole hospital simulation for major incidents.
• To identify benefits and areas for improvement in major incident simulation.

Main Methods:

• Scoping review following PRISMA guidelines.
• Searched PubMed and CINAHL databases.
• Included studies published after 2000, focusing on whole hospital simulations (interventional/observational) relevant to Australian health systems.

Main Results:

• Eleven studies were included, assessing diverse simulation types and outcomes.
• Studies showed variable levels of evidence and heterogeneity.
• All included articles reported positive conclusions regarding major incident simulations.

Conclusions:

• Simulations improve understanding of Major Incident Response Plans and resource management.
• The review could not draw definitive conclusions due to low evidence levels and lack of validated evaluation methods.
• Further research with robust evaluation is needed to confirm simulation benefits.