Introduction: Disaster drills, such as Mass Casualty Incident (MCI) are complex events which require many resources in the crowded Emergency Departments (ED). Previous studies were done in paediatric ED’s and did not demonstrate any effect on patient care. In our novel research, we aim to describe, for the first time, the impact of disaster drills on a large referral Adult ED and the different impact of planned and surprise drills was never studied. Methods: A retrospective study, examining electronic medical records of patients over the age of 18, who visited the ED during documented drill sessions between 2017-2023, in comparison to a control group consisting of visits at the same hours, one and two weeks before and following the drill. Variables such as triage levels, time-to-triage, time to-physician, re-admission rates, and mortality were examined, while further differentiating the impact of surprise and planned drills. Results: The research group consisted of 585 patients, and the control group 2447, with similar characteristics for all patients. Out of eight drills that took place, four were surprise drills and four were planned. Time-to-admission on the planned drills was shorter. Average time-to-triage was significantly longer in the general research group and even longer in the research group in the surprise drill, our subgroup, where the median time was doubled. Conclusion: It was found that MCI drills do impact patient care, specifically extended triage times. These findings are crucial and should be considered to ensure that real time patient care is not jeopardized.
Raisch et al. (Sun,) studied this question.