A Systematic Literature Review Identifying the Dimensions and Components of Simulation of the Hospital Emergency Department During Emergencies and Disasters

The use of simulation in medical education is evolving widely around the world. Hospital emergency services in the event of accidents and disasters affect the quality of health care. It is critical to determine the fundamental features for developing a hospital emergency department simulation to improve emergency services. In this regard, the current study conducted a comprehensive assessment of studies with the determinations and components of hospital emergency department simulation during accidents and disasters.   

In this systematic literature review, all studies between January 2010 and  July 2021 were searched in MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, ProQuest, Scopus, Web of Science, Iran medex Google Scholar, and Scientific Information Database (SID), MagIran databases and were analyzed with the thematic analysis approach and results were expressed based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020 guidelines. The quality of the included studies was assessed using related checklists.  

The findings of this study were divided into 3 main categories and 10 subcategories, including factors related to manpower (manpower arrangement, performance-awareness-skills, safety, and communication), factors related to medical services (triage, time, and transfer of the injured), and factors related to resource management and support (physical environment, equipment, and the information system).  

Through systematic planning, simulation allows for the identification of emergency department difficulties during accidents and disasters. Identifying dimensions and components, such as resource management and support, manpower, and medical services, is effective in designing the simulation of the hospital emergency department during accidents and disasters. Therefore, it is recommended to conduct future studies with a qualitative approach and focus on the factors affecting the simulation of the hospital emergency department during disasters, which has been done by the same researchers.