Challenge of Hospital Emergency Preparedness: Analysis and Recommendations

Abstract

In the United States, recent large-scale emergencies and disasters display some element of organized medical emergency response, and hospitals have played prominent roles in many of these incidents. These and other well-publicized incidents have captured the attention of government authorities, regulators, and the public. Health care has assumed a more prominent role as an integral component of any community emergency response. This has resulted in increased funding for hospital preparedness, along with a plethora of new preparedness guidance.Methods to objectively measure the results of these initiatives are only now being developed. It is clear that hospital readiness remains uneven across the United States. Without significant disaster experience, many hospitals remain unprepared for natural disasters. They may be even less ready to accept and care for patient surge from chemical or biological attacks, conventional or nuclear explosive detonations, unusual natural disasters, or novel infectious disease outbreaks.This article explores potential reasons for inconsistent emergency preparedness across the hospital industry. It identifies and discusses potential motivational factors that encourage effective emergency management and the obstacles that may impede it. Strategies are proposed to promote consistent, reproducible, and objectively measured preparedness across the US health care industry. The article also identifies issues requiring research.

An Investigation of Hospital Disaster Preparedness in Turkey

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Integrating epidemiological and engineering approaches in the assessment of human casualties in earthquakes

“…Furthermore, in most emergency plans, hospital and staff preparedness are assumed important in mitigating the number of casualties and injury severity (Barbera et al 2009). Great efforts are invested to improve the level of preparedness among healthcare facilities and staff in order to obtain the appropriate response to future events, primarily manifested by increasing knowledge and improving the ability to provide adequate care as quickly as possible (Ben Natan et al 2013).…”

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“…Despite the fact risk matrices are simple and easy to use, their accuracy is limited which leads to ambiguity and inefficiency in resource allocation and thus need to be used with carefulness (Cox, 2008). (Barbera et al, 2009), which in turn is predominated by voluntariness, level of fear and familiarity (Slovic, 1987;Slovic and Weber, 2002;Slovic, 2010;Sjoberg, 2000). There is a strong belief among some of the interviewees that "the UK is used to disaster planning because of its history of 'terrorism' in the past, which may make it very disaster planning friendly…Based on the disaster planning we have had in the UK, we would cope with 9/11 in totally different way than the Americans did, much better way" [interviewee].…”