Studies on the Situation in Hospitals Accepting Many Casualties Suffered From Great East Japan Earthquake

Abstract

The aim of the study is to point out essential and critical factors to be considered at the stage of planning and design of hospitals in the case of suffering from great disasters such as earthquakes, because increasing possibilities are anticipated in hospitals accepting a number of casualties suffered from great disasters which will simultaneously happened in a region. In order to attain the aim, extensive literature and hearing/ observation surveys were carried out targeting to the hospitals attached by Great East Japan Earthquake on March 2011. As the result, several items were pointed out.

Studies of first‐aid medical stations by flow simulation of damaged patients by the earthquake part 2: Investigation based on the area scale of disaster base hospitals by predicting the number of patients affected by a northern Tokyo Bay earthquake

“…In addition, if we do not take measures, such as transporting hospitalized but stable patients to other facilities, there will be no bed vacancies. Thus, even if problems with medical equipment and the number of staff remain, there is a need for a sufficiently large red area in order to respond to the disaster and adequate building construction should be secured accordingly. When devising a method for accepting casualties in the hospital, the basic plan is to allocate areas corresponding to each triage color tag and to consider the distribution of each area 8,13,14 . However, since the red‐area space is insufficient for accommodating all red‐tag casualties, it may be possible to initially place lower priority red‐tag casualties in the yellow area.…”

“…6 When devising a method for accepting casualties in the hospital, the basic plan is to allocate areas corresponding to each triage color tag and to consider the distribution of each area. 8,13,14 However, since the red-area space is insufficient for accommodating all red-tag casualties, it may be possible to initially place lower priority red-tag casualties in the yellow area. Another alternative that should be considered is allowing the red area to expand into the yellow area when necessary.…”

Analysis of Countermeasures and Demands for Hospital Facilities Accepting Casualties

“…Studies on space planning for accommodating casualties from devastating disasters in hospital Kana EGAWA 1 , Atsushi KIMURA 2 , Kyoko HINE 3 , Ikushi YODA 4 , Tetsuro YAMASHITA 5 1 Assistant Prof. School of Information Environment Department of Information Environment, Tokyo Denki Univ., Dr. Eng. 2 Associate Prof. Department of Risk Management, College of Risk Management, Nihon Univ., Ph.D. 3 Assistant Prof. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Toyohashi Univ.…”

“…2 Associate Prof. Department of Risk Management, College of Risk Management, Nihon Univ., Ph.D. 3 Assistant Prof. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Toyohashi Univ. Tech., Ph.D. 4 Senior Research Scientist, Human Informatics Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Dr. Eng. 5 Prof., School of Architecture, Kogakuin Univ., Dr. Eng.…”