The answer suggested in the Discussion section of that question incorporates the recommendations of the abovementioned bodies, as well as the suggestions from the college answer. There is also the LITFL article on this topic which is heavily exam-oriented. The LITFL article in turn takes its inspiration from this 2006 MJA article, as well as published experiences from the recent H1N1 pandemic. Beyond pandemics, other historical disasters we have learned from have included...
Non-LITFL resources for this sort of thing include:
The various writings by Mauricio Lynn are particularly good. Lynn is ex-military, a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the Israeli Military where he served for 18 years (some of that time as Chief of Trauma). His disaster cred comes from having been involved in the Narobi bombing (American embassy) and the 1999 earthquake in Turkey. Moreover, the Israeli experience of mass casualties is formidable. Aschkenasy-Steuer et al (2005) were able to compile a retrospective review spanning four years, during which a nightmarish 33 mass casualty events occurred, totalling 541 victims (twenty of the events involved more than ten wounded).
What the hell is a "mass casualty event"? Well, the numerical cut-off is ten simultaneous cases. This is a totally arbitrary number.
In summary, in a mass casualty disaster incident:
Thus:
The effectiveness of disaster response is usually limited by bed capacity as the primary problem (you can stretch existing staff and make them work harder, but beds are much less elastic). The ability to adequately expand bed numbers ("surge capacity") depends on several factors:
Specific issues need to be addressed as a part of the disaster management plan:
So, you're the director of critical care services during a disaster. And .... you get a disaster. What do you do?
This is a suggested "action card" from Shirley et al (2008). It's so good that I reproduced it with zero modification, as a potential future cut-and-paste answer to a CICM SAQ.
In preparation for mass casualty incidents, a rigid hierarchical structure needs to be erected to act as the emergency scaffold for all further intensive care staffing questions.
How to conserve precious ICU resources? Ensure the patients being sent there are genuinely ICU-ish.
If the capacity of the ICU is exceeded even after non-major cases are turned away, there needs ro be a well-established protocol for diversion of patients to other intensive care units, which might mean moving stable medical ICU patients by road to the next nearest low-level ICU. This pattern of diversion needs to be well-established in advance of the disaster, i.e. there needs to be a mandatory acceptance to streamline this process (you can't spend all your time on the phone looking for an accepting ICU because everybody keeps refusing).
Historically:
This concerns the diversion of resources of other departments to the ICU during prolonged emergencies, such as the need to ventilate numerous respiratory failure patients during the H1N1 pandemic. In this sort of situation, you need more ventilators and more ICU beds.
The major resource problem during the H1N1 pandemic in Australia was actually the availability of ICU-trained nurses. How to create greater nursing and medical workforce numbers?
On the basis of their massive Israeli experience, Aschkenasy-Steuer et al (2005) also recommend the following:
Daugherty, Elizabeth L., and Lewis Rubinson. "Preparing your intensive care unit to respond in crisis: Considerations for critical care clinicians." Critical care medicine 39.11 (2011): 2534-2539.
Devereaux, Asha, et al. "Summary of suggestions from the task force for mass critical care summit, January 26–27, 2007." CHEST Journal 133.5_suppl (2008): 1S-7S.
Horvath, John S., Moira McKinnon, and Leslee Roberts. "The Australian response: pandemic influenza preparedness." Medical journal of Australia185.10 (2006): S35.
Sprung, Charles L., et al. "Recommendations for intensive care unit and hospital preparations for an influenza epidemic or mass disaster: summary report of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine’s Task Force for intensive care unit triage during an influenza epidemic or mass disaster."Intensive care medicine 36.3 (2010): 428-443.
Harrigan, P. W., et al. "The practical experience of managing the H1N1 2009 influenza pandemic in Australian and New Zealand intensive care units." Crit Care Resusc 12.2 (2010): 121-130.
Lynn, Mauricio. Mass Casualty Incidents. Springer New York, 2016.
Briggs, Susan Miller. "Disaster Management and Preparedness." Principles of Adult Surgical Critical Care. Springer International Publishing, 2016. 487-494.
Davis, Daniel P., et al. "Hospital bed surge capacity in the event of a mass-casualty incident." Prehospital and Disaster Medicine 20.03 (2005): 169-176.
Avidan, Vered, et al. "Civilian hospital response to a mass casualty event: the role of the intensive care unit." Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery 62.5 (2007): 1234-1239.
Mahoney, Eric J., Walter L. Biffl, and William G. Cioffi. "Mass-casualty incidents: how does an ICU prepare." Journal of intensive care medicine(2008).
Aschkenasy-Steuer, Gabriella, et al. "Clinical review: the Israeli experience: conventional terrorism and critical care." Critical care 9.5 (2005): 490.
Lynn, Mauricio, et al. "Management of conventional mass casualty incidents: ten commandments for hospital planning." Journal of burn care & research 27.5 (2006): 649-658.
Shirley, Peter J., and Gerlinde Mandersloot. "Clinical review: the role of the intensive care physician in mass casualty incidents: planning, organisation, and leadership." Critical care 12.3 (2008): 1.
Parker, Margaret M. "Critical care and disaster management." Critical care medicine 34.3 (2006): S52-S55.
de Ceballos, J. Peral Gutierrez, et al. "11 March 2004: The terrorist bomb explosions in Madrid, Spain–an analysis of the logistics, injuries sustained and clinical management of casualties treated at the closest hospital." Critical Care 9.1 (2004): 1.
de Ceballos, J. Peral Gutierrez, et al. "Casualties treated at the closest hospital in the Madrid, March 11, terrorist bombings." Critical care medicine33.1 (2005): S107-S112.
Hawryluck, Laura, Stephen E. Lapinsky, and Thomas E. Stewart. "Clinical review: SARS–lessons in disaster management." Critical Care 9.4 (2005): 1.
Okumura, Sumie, et al. "Clinical review: Tokyo–protecting the health care worker during a chemical mass casualty event: an important issue of continuing relevance." Critical Care 9.4 (2005): 1.
Rosenfeld, Jeffrey V., et al. "Is the Australian hospital system adequately prepared for terrorism." Med J Aust 183.11/12 (2005): 567-570.