Authors: Matthias Max, German Red CrossJohannes Sautter, Fraunhofer IAO

1. Practitioners‘ Track
Analysis of a German First Responder Exercise: Requirements
for Exercise-Support and Simulation
Matthias Max, German Red Cross
Johannes Sautter, Fraunhofer IAO

2. Real-life exercises have a set of limitations:
 Lack of possibilities to vary the location and condition of injured
 Difficult to achieve realistic time and capacity constraints
 Costs in time and money to prepare the exercise
 Impossibility to repeat the exercise in every detail
Analysis of a German First Responder Exercise: Requirements for Exercise-Support and Simulation

3. ISCRAM Summer School 2012
Motivation and Visions
Real-life exercises are crucial and necessary to train leading
personnel and first responders in handling special situations, but are
difficult and costly to organize
Vision 1: Computer-based simulation of tactical workflows
allow crisis managers to elaborate suitable strategies
for short-term planning of alternative tactical decisions
Vision 2: Exercise-leader-support during exercise runs and for
debriefing
Gathering of key performance data (times and decisions)
Reporting and visualization of workflows, times and decisions
Analysis of a German First Responder Exercise: Requirements for Exercise-Support and Simulation

4. Context
 Rural first responder unit at district level in
Germany
 Exercise in summer 2012
 Observation and subsequent interviews
Analysis of a German First Responder Exercise: Requirements for Exercise-Support and Simulation

5. Scenario description
 A bus that crashes into a car
 50 people injured
 Realistic scenario
 This kind of scenario could happen
everywhere and every time.
Accident
Alert at Command & Control Center
9:00 AM 09:13
Start Operational Phase
Arrival on site,
Hazard Analysis
Pre-Triage
09:18
Spatial planning
09:22 09:37 10:13
Transportation to hospitals
09:25
All injured on the
way to hospitals
Treatment of patients (on site, in vehicle)
Analysis of a German First Responder Exercise: Requirements for Exercise-Support and Simulation

6. Spatial planning
Output data
vehicle logistic workflows: time needed to establish parking order
User needs for short-term planning simulation tool
 Pre-configuration: Local locations and capabilities (e.g. emergency
services and hospitals)
 Input from user: Simulation of different alternatives to position
patients depot and an optional vehicle queue
 Output of Simulation run: workflow times (e.g. walking with patient
stretcher) dependent on vehicle positions
Use cases during exercise
 exercise data steward: maintain geographic locations for live-
monitoring,
 exercise leader: exercise-monitoring, estimation of the effectiveness
of different spatial strategies
Analysis of a German First Responder Exercise: Requirements for Exercise-Support and Simulation

7. Triage and transportation to patient depot
Output data
 Stretcher transport time (out of the damage zone to the
patients’ depot/vehicles)
 Available responders for carrying
User needs for simulation tool
 Pre-configuration: Integration of validated medical data on
patients behavior
 Pre-configuration: Disease and injury patterns dependent on
time and the type of medical treatment.
Use cases during exercise
 Exercise data steward: assess triaged patients from the first
responders in training/patient actors
 exercise leader: identify problems during the pre-triage,
monitor capacity bottlenecks.
Analysis of a German First Responder Exercise: Requirements for Exercise-Support and Simulation

8. Transportation to the hospital
Output data
 Time vehicle/helicopter needs to arrive at the hospital/at the incident
scene again.
User needs for simulation tool
 Pre-configuration: The integration of local road maps, geo-referenced
collection of all hospitals in the districts around (150 km)
 Output of Simulation run: real-time data on surgery capacities in the
hospitals, real-time traffic data, data on weather conditions.
Use cases during exercise
 exercise data steward: gather data from command vehicle
 exercise leader: e.g. report problems with vehicle queue and
departure workflow
Analysis of a German First Responder Exercise: Requirements for Exercise-Support and Simulation

9. Conclusion
 Exact proceeding of a first responder exercise was analysed
 Three relevant phases were identified
 Output data, user needs and use cases were extracted
 End-user requirements were identified:
 Exercise-support software solution
 Utilization of output data for simulation
tools
 Improvement of training, future
exercises and capacity/resources
planning by region-specific
simulation tool
Analysis of a German First Responder Exercise: Requirements for Exercise-Support and Simulation

10. Thank You Very Much!
Contact
Matthias Max, MaxM@drk.de
Johannes Sautter, johannes.sautter@iao.fraunhofer.de
This research is funded by EU FP7/07–13, grant agreement n° 284552 within
CRISMA – Modelling crisis management for
improved action and preparedness
www.crismaproject.eu
Analysis of a German First Responder Exercise: Requirements for Exercise-Support and Simulation