Hospital Emergency Preparedness Plan Review in a Low-Resource Country After a Mass Casualty Incident: The Beirut Blast.

A mass casualty incident (MCI) is an event that overwhelms the available medical resources due to a large number of casualties, typically requiring immediate medical attention and exceeding the normal capacity of emergency response systems. MCIs mandate the immediate transition from the daily working routine in a hospital to crisis mode through the implementation of an emergency preparedness plan (EPP). Following an MCI, hospitals must anticipate chaos and a large influx of patients, some with life-threatening injuries that require fast decision-making. Lebanon is a low-resource country that has already been suffering from the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and an ongoing economic crisis. This study reviews the EPP of the Lebanese American University Medical Center in response to an MCI that resulted from the "Beirut blast" disaster.