Hospital resilience in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines

Abstract

Purpose Resilient health facilities, particularly hospitals, are critical for a responsive local health system in post-disaster settings. The purpose of this paper is to look at the experiences of two hospitals (public and private) in Tacloban City, Philippines in the aftermath of a super typhoon and their respective delivery of health services in such setting. Design/methodology/approach It described the impact of Typhoon Haiyan on health services delivery capacity and the factors instrumental in the resilience of the case hospitals. Lessons learned from the hospitals’ experiences, both at the level of the hospital staff and the institution, were also drawn. Disaster preparedness of case hospitals were assessed along several domains of resilience. Key informant interviews among stakeholders were conducted with key themes on disaster resilience extracted. Findings Disaster preparedness scores for case hospitals were different from each other and were reflected in their experiences of health services delivery in the aftermath of the disaster. Research limitations/implications This study on hospital resilience of two case hospitals, in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, is exploratory in nature. The retrospective design of the study made it prone to recall bias. Further, the use of self-report measures for hospital resilience needs to be validated by more objective measures. The lack of baseline pre-disaster resilience indicators and the unpredictability of disasters could perhaps be addressed by a longitudinal study on hospital resilience in disasters in the future. Originality/value This study revealed several key findings. Some of the themes that emerged were: public health in disaster is the responsibility of both public and private hospitals; need for flexibility in disaster preparedness and planning, disaster resilience is an emergent process not a static construct, chaos results from zeal without coordination, and the need for integration of disaster preparedness in daily processes and structures of hospital facilities.

Hospital resilience after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal: results from semi-structured interviews with hospital staff

“…6 Despite a growing recognition of its importance, the concept of hospital disaster resilience remains somewhat elusive. 7 Hospital resilience, a concept developed by engineering sciences, is de ned as the "ability to overcome disasters with inherent capacity and adaptive exibility, providing emergency medical services and responding to sudden increases in demand, while retaining essential functionalities". 4 The four "resilience R's" framework of hospital resilience consists of "means" of resilience -Redundancy and Resourcefulness -and "ends" of resilience -Robustness and Rapidity.…”

“…A recent paper attempted to use existing frameworks after an actual disaster, but it focused on experiences at managerial levels rather than from the frontlines. 7 However, frontline staff are confronted with di cult situations that are often not re ected in strategic level experiences, but greatly in uence overall disaster response and, ultimately, disaster impact. Only by understanding experiences of hospital staff can we design plans that target them and increase overall hospital resilience.…”

Towards Developing a Model for the Evaluation of Hospital Disaster Resilience: A Systematic Review

“…Through surveying, the methodology of the The remained article was a narrative study. Additional file 2 shows the characteristics of the full sources included in the study(4,8,25, 27,29,(31)(32)(33).…”

Towards Developing a Model for the Evaluation of Hospital Disaster Resilience: A Systematic Review

“…Moreover, the activities for repair or reconstruction should be performed (2)(3)(4). The literature review indicates that the main reason for most of the damages in health facilities is related to inappropriate site selection for the building, lack of proper design or insufficient maintenance (5).…”

“…The remained article was a narrative study. Additional file 3 shows the characteristics of the full sources included in the study(4,8,25, 27,29,(31)(32)(33).…”