The Massey University study aimed to help with designing hospitals and planning evacuations. Photo: Supplied
Eight hospital evacuation drills have shown up the time it takes to get patients in beds or those hooked up to machines out.
A new Massey University study draws on the drills at wards, hyper acute stroke units, high-dependency units and post-anaesthesia care units.
It aimed to help with designing hospitals and planning evacuations.
"Hospital evacuations present unique challenges due to the dependency of patients on medical staff and specialised equipment," said the study.
The researchers, who included a German fire engineer, aimed to plug gaps in what was known about hospital evacuations.
The gaps limit what data fire engineers can feed into computer simulations when designing for evacuations.
The study found big differences in how long it takes to evacuate, slowed down for instance by having to disconnect medical devices.
Patients in beds took a fair bit longer to prepare than those who were in wheelchairs or were walking.
The highest acuity cases took the longest to evacuate "by a large margin".
"Results suggest that depending on the type of space, there can be considerable differences in the proportion of time spent actively preparing a patient for egress versus time spent waiting for equipment or staff to become available."
"High-acuity units like the HDU, where patients require extensive medical support, exhibited notably longer active preparation times."
It showed up the need for portable medical equipment.
"The insights can be used to generate more reliable hospital evacuation simulations, improving evacuation planning accuracy and enhancing overall hospital safety during emergency scenarios," said a statement.
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