Virtual Reality Simulations for Hospital Fire Evacuation: A Systematic Literature Review

A Health Care Establishment (HCE) aims at treating, medicating, curing, and sheltering individuals with health needs. It is not expected that this type of establishment poses a threat to the life of any individual. However, like any other establishment, an HCE is vulnerable to human failures that can represent an imminent danger to an individual's life. Between 2012 and 2014, approximately 1,100 annual cases of hospital fires were recorded in the USA. Thus, hospital staff training, regarding the evacuation of hospitalized individuals, emerges as an essential practice in reducing the number of deaths and injuries in the face of this kind of disaster. Given this scenario, new technologies have been used in evacuation training, such as Virtual Reality (VR). Therefore, in this paper, we aimed at summarizing the state-of-the-art concerning the fire evacuation training in hospitals using VR, through a systematic literature review. After a rigorous selection process, nine studies were included in the review. These studies addressed, as a majority, some negative aspects concerning traditional evacuation training; thus, encouraging the use of virtual environments for training, where it is possible to immerse the user in extreme simulated fire situations that may occur within a hospital. We also summarized the data regarding the financial costs between traditional and VR training, between methods and technologies for VE training implementation, and some limitations of applying VR technology. In conclusion, emphasis is placed on the need for new VR studies related to hospital fire evacuation training.