Hospital flood emergency management planning using Markov models and discrete-event simulation

Disasters such as major floods affect all part of the globe. Hospital and healthcare structures are critical resources during such event and do not always benefit of emergency preparedness. When hospitals are impacted by the disaster, it puts a strain on the system and a reorganization of all available hospitals on a given territory is necessary. As part of case study applied to the impact of floods on the Île-De-France region’s health system, we present in this paper a simulation model that evaluates healthcare emergency plan by combining the healthcare process with the flood dynamics. The results can be used to elaborate an optimized strategy for evacuation and transfer operations. We provide a case study including several medical specialties and quantify the impact of several flood scenarios on the healthcare system.