Evacuation Simulator For Hospital

[Student]

Hello,

I am a Computing Science student at Glasgow University and I am currently approaching the end of a team project in which we developed a computer based evacuation simulator for a local hospital. A screenshot of the project can be seen at the following link :

http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~johnstoj/screen.jpg

The simulation was of progressive horizontal evacuation resulting from a fire including ward staff and ambulant/non-ambualnt patients. We have been kindly supported by advisors from the North Glasgow University Hospitals Division. The aim of the project was to produce a visual representation of the procedures involved in horizontal evacuation. The software also allows the user to input parameters such as numbers for staff and patients to show approximately the difference in evacuation time that this would cause.

The reason for this post is to ask if any of the forum members (preferably those who are employed in jobs related to fire safety or hospitals)  have come across such a piece of software for hospitals before and whether they think it could be worthwhile for use in training staff.

Many Thanks
J Johnston

[Colin Newman]

Many years ago the team at Greenwich University produced an initial simulation of hospital evacuation using their Exodus model.  They based their model on data from an evacuation caaried out in Hackney in the the 1970's.  The initial model was a reasonable approximation, but to my knowledge no further work was done to refine the initial study.

Early in 2000 NHS Estates was seeking to develop both fire models and evacuation models specific to hospitals, but couldn't raise sufficient funding.  

Another issue that will need to be addressed is that to my knowledge there is little in the way of robust data derived from evacuation exercises or actual evacuations in hospitals that can be used to validate any model produced.  The big problem here is that anyone producing a hospital evacuation model would need two discrete data sets, one on which to base the model and another to validate the model output.  I don't believe that this data exists in a useable form.

As for being worthwhile, I would think definately so.  Not just for staff training, but for means of escape design verification.

Hope this helps.

[morrisb]

Just came accross this interesting post. Not sure if you will still  be picking it up

Things have moved on in terms of what simulations can do. We have developed the abilty to create photo realisitc 3D models from digital potographs. The models can then be navigated though adding special effets such as smoke, sound, lighting, collision, fire audit trails of users navigation etc .In effect creating a bespoke real simulation on specific buildings.
Development in progress included relationship databases that allow a mdel to be interogated in layers, including not only the building structure and materials but also possible external databases such as patient names and record on a per ward basis, drug records in a particular room etc. As you can see we whilst we are still developng this aspect we believe the real applications will come from the end users.

We are looking for new avenues to explore and would welcome further discussion

regards

Brendan
brendan@stratathink.com