Start with a likely case. The first simulation in a new environment should be something this
population would realistically produce. Running it puts the whole system under gentle load: the team, the kit, the space,
the reach-back and the evacuation chain. That is usually enough to show you where the holes are. Walter Eppich's point is
that a team handed its worst imaginable scenario before it trusts the process takes away the wrong lesson, so the early
cases stay ordinary and the difficulty rises only once the basics hold. The high-acuity, low-occurrence (HALO) event comes
later.
What this toolkit does
You have deployed into a clinic, an aid station, a ship's hospital, an expedition camp or a forward facility, and before you rely on it you want to know it works. This site gives you what you need to run that first smoke-test simulation and to turn what it shows you into a plan you can act on.
1Profile
Who are you covering, for how long, how far from definitive care, what evacuation exists.
2Pick the likely case
Choose the scenario from your population's demand model, not the catastrophe.
3Run the smoke-test
Set the scene with simple props, brief the team, run it, watch the system.
4Analyse the gaps
Kit, personnel, facility footprint, training, comms and evacuation.
5Act
Label each finding: Add, Consolidate, Reduce, Keep, Re-organise.
6Escalate
Raise fidelity toward the HALO event once the ordinary case runs clean.
The tools
Cue Cards
A printable deck that walks you card by card through setting up, briefing, running and debriefing the smoke-test, including the Field PEARLS 4-question debrief.
Print deck
Setup & Run Checklist
Tick-box checklist across the whole cycle: plan, scene, brief, run, debrief, capture. Saves in your browser; prints clean.
Interactive
Gap Analysis Worksheet
Structured capture of what the sim exposed, organised by kit, personnel, facility footprint, training and comms/evac, with action tags. Saves and exports.
Interactive
Props & Standard Kit
SIMPLESIM low-fidelity props with build notes and AI image-generation prompts, plus what a standard operational medical kit should contain.
Reference
Tabletop
Drag the ready-made card assets, patient, monitor, kit pouches, zone signs, onto a canvas and run the whole simulation on a laptop or projector. No printer needed.
Run on screen
Aid-Station Layout Sketcher
Drag simple graphics onto a floor plan to sketch your clinic or aid-station layout: triage, resus, hold, supply, oxygen, comms, evacuation. Save and export.
Interactive
Sample Entry — Polar Cruise
A fully worked smoke-test on a polar expedition cruise, using a real 1,169-encounter case log and the Quark Expeditions ship kit.
Worked example
What good looks like. By the end you should be able to say that the right kit is present and
quick to find, that the people and the space work, and that reach-back and evacuation function. Anywhere that falls short,
you will have written it down and given it an owner.