Fire Emergency Response Modeling and Analysis in Hospital Emergency Departments Using a Petri Net Model

Background: Fire safety in emergencies and health care centers is a morally and legally sensitive issue, so if patients or staff are affected by external factors such as fire, the quality of the overall system management and health care will directly be touched. Medical centers are among the places with many fire accidents each year due to the lack of standardization of buildings in terms of fire safety. This study aimed to model and analyze the fire emergency response in emergency department of hospital by hospital fire emergency response prediction network (HFERP-net) method. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed in the Emergency Department of a hospital affiliated with Iranian Social Security Organization in ۲۰۱۹. The risk assessment of the hospital was done using (FRAME) method and after that a model was developed according to the Petri net structure for fire emergency response. Results: Task description, task scheduling, and the relationship between them were not well defined and it was time consuming. By developing the model and performing a fire drill in the unit, the tasks being identified and the time required for the  proper communication between them was reduced.  Conclusion: The results showed that the fire risk level in the studied unit was unacceptable and the fire safety principles should be upgraded to an acceptable level. This method can be effective for emergency response planning and identifying high fire risks in health centers. By performing drills, potential conflicts of the tasks and resources will be identified and then the emergency response plan can be improved.

کلیدواژه ها:

Hospital ، Fire safety ، Fire emergency response ، Hospital fire emergency response prediction network (HFERP-net) model ، Health centers