Characteristics of an Ideal Field Hospital

Background and Aim: Over the past years, field hospitals have been created and developed near the accident site to help provide faster and more favorable medical services and save human lives during war and natural disasters. Since the field hospital must have a lot of medical equipment, manpower, and treatment spaces, it needs a special framework and features. The purpose of this study is to present these characteristics for the construction of a field hospital, and its results can be used as a practical and generalizable framework for the productivity of building an ideal field hospital in Iran and other armed forces of the world.
Methods: The present qualitative study was conducted by document content analysis and according to the experience of the authors and field observations. First, by reviewing electronic sources, all existing documents and articles related to the characteristics of an ideal field hospital were identified. The selection of documents was done purposefully and considering the four criteria of JUPP. After the multi-step screening, 85 documents were selected and analysis was done after coding.
Results: The ideal features for establishing a field hospital to provide optimal medical services to the wounded and injured due to war or accident were identified and recorded in 40 fields.
Conclusion: Modern, up-to-date, and more comprehensive field hospitals can save the lives of the injured and improve the treatment process. These features include: having all the functional standards of a hospital, being self-sufficient and self-reliant, being in a network, having an advanced telemedicine system, being mission-oriented, easy to transport, having multiple uses, having special equipment for surgeries, having a room and a command and control system…, is vital on a high scale.