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| ISSN:1684-193X | Updated July 10, 2002 |
Annals of Disaster Medicine
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Contents: June 2002 Vol. 1, Num. 1 | |
| Comparisons
of Efficiencies in Recognition of Hospital Emergency Incident Command System by Tabletop drill and Real Exercise | |
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Kuo-Chih Chen, MD; Chien-Chih Chen, MD; Tzong-Luen Wang, MD,
PhD | |
| Abstract ---The objective of this study was to assess the attitudes of hospital staffs toward the role of tabletop drills in simulation of Hospital Emergency Incident Command System (HEICS). One-hundred and sixteen hospital staffs (including medical staffs, logistics, administrative/financial, and planning) attended the HEICS training at our institute. All participants had experience in field disaster exercise training before they attended this course. The training course included 4-hour lecture and 2.5-hour tabletop drills. Ninety-eight of the participants completed a questionnaire after the tabletop drills. The results revealed that the field operation exercise could not validate real disasters and not provide definite benefits in improving disaster training, equipment, supplies, and plans whereas tabletop drills provided better performance (93.2% vs. 56.2%, P<0.001). The tabletop drills were superior to the field operation exercises in providing better performance of key executives (98.9% vs. 70.8%, P<0.001), clear leadership (98.9% vs. 70.8%, P<0.001), and adequate inter-agency cooperation (98.9% vs. 70.8%, P<0.001). Tabletop exercise had also the benefits in cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, neither tabletop drills nor field operation exercise could replace the training of skills such as rescue and emergency care techniques. In conclusion, tabletop drills are recommended before large-scale field exercises are undergone in disaster preparedness. (Ann. Disaster Med 2002;1:29-35) | |
| Key words---Disaster; HEICS; tabletop drills; field drills |
