Impact of Virtual Disaster Collaboration Exercises on Disaster Leadership at Hospitals in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This study measured the impact of virtual three-level collaboration (3LC) exercises on participants’ perceived levels of collaboration, learning, and utility (CLU) at hospitals in the southern region of Saudi Arabia. Our 3LC exercise is a tabletop training tool used to facilitate disaster education and document CLU. This model enables the practitioner to acquire new knowledge and promotes active learning. An English version of the CLU scale, the validated Swedish survey tool, was applied to 100 healthcare managers or leaders in various positions at both the operational and tactical levels after conducting the 3LC exercises. The response rate was 100%, although not all questions were answered in some cases. The results show that most participants strongly agreed that the exercises focused on collaboration (r2 = 0.767) and that they had acquired new knowledge during the exercises. There was a statistically significant association between participation in the collaboration exercises and perceived learning (r2 = 0.793), as well as between perceived learning and utility (r2 = 0.811). The collaboration exercises enhance the perceived effects of CLU. They also improve the ability of participants to adapt situational strategies to achieve a safer society. Although exercises were conducted virtually, they were well received by the participants and achieved a value M = 4.4 CLU score, which opens up new dimensions in collaboration simulation exercises.

Civilian-Military Collaboration before and during COVID-19 Pandemic—A Systematic Review and a Pilot Survey among Practitioners

“…There are some joint events but practical collaboration with a mutual target, when both organizations may share a benefit barely exist. In most cases, military healthcare assists the civilian partner; there might be a different outcome if civilian healthcare is asked to assist the military partner in an armed conflict while confronting a constrained system with overloaded emergency departments [59,[72][73][74]. Several participants in the pilot survey expressed their views; Participants 2: Communication has improved, but before COVID-19, we have some annual meetings.…”

“…Finally, the most common CMC reported in the works of literature were in the fields of logistics and trauma. Other fields for CMC collaboration, e.g., infectious diseases, were poorly investigated [3,4,[6][7][8][9][20][21][22][23][24][25]35,36,[41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48]73,74].…”

Disaster Collaborative Exercises for Healthcare Teamwork in a Saudi Context

“…This study used a mixed method approach, using three-level collaboration tabletop exercises combined with the Command and control, Safety, Communication, Assessment, Treatment, Triage, Transport (CSCATTT) instrument, a collaborative instrument originated from the Major Incident Medical Management and Support courses (MIMMS) (Sultan et al 2021 ), to obtain quantitative data. The performance of 100 HCWs was assessed using the observational method during each step in the implementation of the CSCATTT instrument through two simulated scenarios.…”

Willingness to Work during Public Health Emergencies: A Systematic Literature Review

“…For example, [ 10 ] show that regular medical students are not prepared to deal with emergency situations, such as natural disasters consequences, as opposed to those who studied medicine in a military school. The same unpreparedness of health professionals to deal with emergencies, ranging from lack of knowledge of protocols and their implementation, was also found in Saudi Arabia, China, and Egypt [ 11 , 12 ].…”

“…The following are available online at , Table S1: The main global information collected from the publications. [ 8 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 ,…”