Exploring of offshore medical emergency response system challenges in oil and gas environment

Abstract

This paper explored the challenges present in the offshore medical emergency response (MER) system from the perspective of offshore medics by reflecting on their experiences in handling delays in emergency medical evacuation cases. We conducted qualitative interviews using the critical incident technique method. The participants recruited using the purposive sampling method comprise of 8 experienced offshore medics working on various types of oil and gas offshore facilities across the Malaysian Offshore. Data analysis was performed using qualitative content analysis. The in-depth individual interviews have resulted in the identification of 114 critical incidents for analysis. Seven themes emerged on MER system challenges including communication, decision making, facility layout, logistics problems, offshore medic responds, SOP and protocols as well as weather conditions. Decision-making was found to be one of the major challenges. The results suggest that the MER system needs to be revised in its current practice and we have proposed revisions to the industrial guidelines on response time tiers. This study has added a new understanding on the challenges found in the MER system from a different perspective.