Events such as the Sydney Quakers Hill Nursing Home fire highlighted the great need for robust evacuation plans for Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs). However, plans alone are not sufficient and routine exercises are necessary to test the capability of a facility’s emergency plan. Current methods of exercising facility evacuations, such as live drills, are limited and only test isolated elements of the evacuation process, which fall drastically short of being able to simulate the real-time resources and procedures required to perform a large scale evacuation of a RACF.

To develop an exercise tool that assists Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACF) to evaluate their evacuation procedures using quantifiable data, based on real-time and providing minimal disruption to existing residents.

Utilizing the existing ETS framework, an aged care resident patient bank was developed by NSW Health Emergency Management Unit, including:

• A bank of 200 residents from data sourced from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

• Layout for the resident gubers and Summary Care Plans.

• Resources and equipment routinely used in RACF’s.

• Real-world testing of the prototype in exercises across NSW, Australia

• Mortality and morbidity data to measure outcomes.

• Validation of the exercise tool nationally and internationally.

A bank of residents was developed to test evacuation systems and processes, in a scalable, realistic simulation based on patient outcomes. This will result in improved planning and process, empowerment of RACFs, better patient outcomes, and increased resilience and preparedness.

A significant investment of data, time, and effort has gone into producing this resident bank for use in RACF evacuation exercises across NSW Australia. A presentation delivered at the ETS World Congress in the Netherlands (2018), by NSW Health Emergency Management Unit, showcased the relevance and suitability of this tool across the world.