Medical Response to Major Incidents and Disasters

Name of the project: Medical Response to Major Incidents and Disasters

Customer institution: Croatian Institute of Emergency Medicine

Funding source: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development

About the project:

The Medical Response to Major Accidents and Disasters (Cro MRMI) course includes lectures and practical training using simulation exercises for decision-making at all levels in case of a crisis. Simulation exercises are performed on the MACSIM® system (MAss Casualty SIMulation), a science-based simulation system aimed at improving preparedness and response to major accidents and disasters. In addition to providing simultaneous interactive training of the entire response chain for all involved categories of participants, MACSIM® also contains tools for testing and ensuring the quality of preparation, organization and performance of the course, as well as a tool for scientific evaluation at all levels of responses required during simulation exercises.

Simulation exercises are performed based on a given scenario and under the supervision of an instructor. This advanced simulation course model simulates the entire chain of patient care and management in a major incident situation. All this includes the incident scenario, the response of the medical dispatch unit, triage and care at the incident scene, transport of the injured, hospital departments, hospital command group and regional crisis headquarters. For the simulation model, patient cards were created that provide all relevant information about the current condition of the victims according to the clinical findings of real victims of a major incident whose injuries were assessed based on two injury severity scoring scales (ISS and RTS). This ensures that the time between the occurrence of injuries and optimal treatment can be estimated. During the course, triage categories are assigned to patient cards in real-time, medical procedures are performed, and patients are transported from the accident scene to hospital wards. All procedures performed are recorded throughout the entire process, and at the end of the simulation exercise, it is possible to evaluate the performance of all workplaces where patients were taken care of.

Project objective: Education of medical professionals for an organized, adequate, timely and coordinated response to major accidents and disasters.

Expected project results: Introducing participants to the organization of work during major incident managing, testing their decision-making abilities in crises and their teamwork abilities when applying standard operating procedures.

Total project amount: EUR 317,319.06

Relevant links: