Evacuation of Bed-bound Patients-STEPS Simulations

Fires in hospitals occur, and evacuation of bed-bound patients might be necessary in case of emergency. The current study concerns the evacuation of bed-bound patients from a fire section in a hospital using hospital porters. The simulations are performed using the STEPS program. The aim of the study is to investigate the evacuation time of bed-bound hospital patients using different walking speeds from the literature, and the influence of the number of hospital porters on the total evacuation times of bed-bound patients. Different scenarios were carried out with varying staff-to-patient ratios that simulate the horizontal evacuation of 40 bed-bound patients into a different fire section.
It was found that the staff-to-patient-ratio affects the total evacuation times. However, the total evacuation times do not decrease linearly and a saturation effect is seen at a staff-to-patient ratio above 1:2.5. Simulations of evacuation of one bed-bound patient vertically, through a staircase 11 storeys high, were carried out using three different movement speeds from the literature. The simulations overestimated of the experimental results. The time difference is explained by a lack of detailed knowledge of evacuation procedure, resulting in a lack of input times for the simulations. Further studies on the procedure and subsequent times are needed.