Exploring the Measurement of Hospice Resilience

Abstract

Resilience is an emergency management concept that encompasses disaster preparedness, continuity of essential services, and recovery and transformation. Attention to healthcare resilience is growing; research on healthcare resilience has increased since events such as the 2014 Ebola epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. However, no studies have been conducted on resilience of hospices, despite a unique patient population and the important role hospices could play in public health emergencies. Quantifying hospice resiliency can aid in planning and response, as well as improving the ability of organizations to transform functionally in response to environmental changes; that is, their transformative capacity. This review examines four measures of resilience that have been applied to the healthcare sector. There are no measures of healthcare resilience that are validated and reliable with respect to the operational profiles of hospices. Further research is necessary to assess and develop valid and reliable measures of hospice resiliency.