A mass casualty event places a huge burden on local hospitals. How much of a burden? The AHRQ Hospital Surge Model provides hospitals and public health officials with a way to predict the hospital resources required.
The model is a web-based tool that requires answering two questions: (1) what type of biological, chemical, nuclear, or radiological event is it? (2) how many casualties are expected?
From this data, it predicts (for each day of the event) the number of arrivals, patients, discharges, and deaths as well as the number of resources (such as specialized staff, consumables, medication) needed.
