Evacuation performance evaluation tool.

Objective: Hospitals conduct evacuation exercises to improve performance during emergency events. An essential aspect in this process is the creation of reliable and valid evaluation tools. The objective of this article is to describe the development and implications of a disaster evacuation performance tool that measures one portion of the very complex process of evacuation.

Design: Through the application of the Delphi technique and DeVellis's framework, disaster and neonatal experts provided input in developing this performance evaluation tool. Following development, content validity and reliability of this tool were assessed.

Setting: Large pediatric hospital and medical center in the Midwest.

Participants: The tool was pilot tested with an administrative, medical, and nursing leadership group and then implemented with a group of 68 healthcare workers during a disaster exercise of a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

Results: The tool has demonstrated high content validity with a scale validity index of 0.979 and inter-rater reliability G coefficient (0.984, 95% CI: 0.948-0.9952).

Conclusions: The Delphi process based on the conceptual framework of DeVellis yielded a psychometrically sound evacuation performance evaluation tool for a NICU.