Software simulation of emergency evacuation and providing corrective measures in hospital buildings

Emergency evacuation from hospitals is a complicated process. This is on account of multiple categories of occupants of hospitals at any given time. This study was conducted using simulation, which simulated emergency evacuation in a teaching hospital. The aim was to identify defects in stairways and exit doors to propose design modifications to facilitate emergency evacuation.

This cross-sectional study was conducted using Pathfinder software. The stages of the study included (1) map and model preparation, (2) field study, (3) simulation of evacuation, and (4) making feasible changes in the dimension of the hospital stairways and exit doors and examining its impact on the efficiency of evacuation processes.

In the case where all people can move on their own, the evacuation time was 129.7 seconds. If the occupants of the beds and wheelchairs needed assisted evacuation, the evacuation time was 733.3 seconds, which increased by more than five times. If there were impediments in the building corridors, the evacuation was not complete, and 36 percent of the people could not be evacuated. By considering modification of around 58.6 percent in width and/or area of exit dimensions based on the field visit and its feasibility without making major structural changes, there was a reduction in the evacuation time by 46 percent.

The results showed that the modifications of passages could make significant improvements in the evacuation process. This would also lead to the reduction of evacuation time in emergencies.