Open Access Emergency Medicine (Sep 2017)

Empirical research on the utility of a preparation manual for a disaster medical response drill

  • Arai T,
  • Ohta S,
  • Onishi M,
  • Taniguchi M,
  • Tsurukiri J,
  • Kumasaka K,
  • Nagata K,
  • Suzuki K,
  • Harigae K,
  • Yukioka T

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 9
pp. 81 – 88

Abstract

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Takao Arai,1 Shoichi Ohta,1 Masaki Onishi,2 Miyu Taniguchi,1 Junya Tsurukiri,1 Kenichiro Kumasaka,1 Katsuhiro Nagata,1 Kensuke Suzuki,3 Ken Harigae,4 Tetsuo Yukioka1 1Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Trauma and Emergency Center, Hachioji Medical Center, Tokyo Medical University, Tokyo, Japan; 2National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Tokyo, Japan; 3Faculty of Medical Science, Nippon Sport Science University, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan; 4Emergency Department, Hino Municipal Hospital, Hino, Tokyo, Japan Purpose: It is difficult for emergency physicians to plan and execute a disaster medical response drill while conducting their daily work activities. Readily available drill preparation manuals are therefore essential, alongside assessment methods to ensure quality. Here, we propose email text analysis as a manual assessment method, and investigate its validity. Methods: The preparation status of two similar large-scale disaster medical response drills were compared. All email texts exchanged during the preparation stage were analyzed, and frequently appearing words (quality element) and word counts (quantity element) were compared between Drill 1, which was organized without a manual, and Drill 2, organized with a manual. Results: Word frequency analysis revealed that the key components of the manual (visualization of necessary work, preparation of documents in a certain format, and clarification of aims of the drill) contributed to the effectiveness of the preparation process for Drill 2. Furthermore, work volume during the preparation for Drill 2 was decreased by 41.9% from that during the preparation for Drill 1. Conclusion: Preparation of a high-quality manual is crucial so that emergency physicians can plan and execute a disaster medical response drill. Email text analysis can serve as an objective method assessing the quality of manuals. Keywords: disaster medicine, textual analysis, database, quality assessment 

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