Mass casualty incidents require prehospital personnel to make rapid and complex decisions under conditions of uncertainty and time pressure. Decisions regarding when and how to initiate patient transport are particularly critical, as they not only affect resource utilization at the incident site but also the capacity and workload of receiving hospitals. There is currently limited knowledge regarding how these decisions are made in practice and how different levels of training influence the decision-making process.
The project systematically examines how prehospital personnel with basic versus advanced training in prehospital medical command reason about patient transport decisions in mass casualty incidents. The project uses interviews with ambulance personnel who have participated in full-scale mass casualty exercises or simulations to gain insight into their decision-making processes, the factors influencing their decisions, and how decision-making differs between personnel with varying levels of training. The results have the potential to strengthen the ability to make robust and contextually appropriate decisions under uncertainty, thereby improving the prehospital management of future mass casualty incidents.