Towards developing a model for the evaluation of hospital disaster resilience: a systematic review

Abstract

Background: Hospitals play a vital role in disaster stricken regions. The resilient hospitals will be able to provide essential services to affected people and it can mitigate the risk of injuries during and after disasters. This study aimed to obtain the indicators required for the evaluation of hospital resilience. Methods: This systematic review was conducted in 2018. Through this systematic review, international electronic databases were investigated for the research studies published in English. The exclusion and inclusion criteria were determined to extract the hospital resilience indicators. These indicators will be used in order to develop a model to keep the system performance at an acceptable level during disasters. Results: Out of 1794 research studies published until September 2018, 89 articles and guidelines with full text were surveyed. Thirty-two articles and guidelines were then selected and analyzed to collect the indicators related to hospital disaster resilience (HDR). The domains and the indicators were extracted from these selected research studies. The authors collected and categorized them into three domains and twenty seven subdomains. The three domains included constructive, infrastructural, and administrative resilience. The relevant indicators were designed for each subdomain to assess HDR. Conclusion: Since diverse indicators affect hospital resilience, other studies should be conducted to propose some models or tools to quantify the hospital resilience in different countries and scopes with an all hazards approach.

Long-Term Acute Care Hospitals Extend ICU Capacity for COVID-19 Response and Recovery

“…RE is associated with the ability of an organization to recover quickly to a stable state, allowing it to continue operations during and after the presence of significant stresses ( Fig 1 ). 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 After examining our normal work processes, three levels of modifications using RE were made to our LTACHs, depending on their location and responsiveness to the needs of regional hospitals: (1) transforming LTACHs into a COVID-19 treatment center; (2) preparing LTACHs to admit and treat COVID-19 recovery patients; and 3) preparing LTACHs to treat non-COVID-19 ICU overflow patients. Many of these additional processes were similar to those developed by traditional hospitals in response to the pandemic but required personalization and further adaptation to fit into the LTACH workflow, to provide treatment for COVID-19 patients and those recovering from the consequences of COVID-19 infection.…”

The importance of pre-training gap analyses and the identification of competencies and skill requirements of medical personnel for mass casualty incidents and disaster training

“…The medical outcomes of Mass Casualty Incidents (MCI) depend on the resilience of health care systems, defined as the 4Rs, i.e. Robustness (infrastructure and human resilience), Redundancy (the availability of material resources and the competences of health care personnel), Resourcefulness (the existence of plans and strategies), and Rapidity (the prompt setting of priorities) [1][2][3][4]. Hospital preparedness constitutes both structural and non-structural readiness.…”

Development of a Multi-Criteria Model for Sustainable Reorganization of a Healthcare System in an Emergency Situation Caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Nekoie-Moghadam et al [5] considered studies that analyzed the level of preparedness of healthcare institutions in terms of logistical capacity, capacity of medical personnel, preparedness of communications for an emergency, management skills, training of medical and non-medical personnel, development of procedures for evacuation of seriously ill people and isolation in case of infectious diseases, disaster recovery, transport capacity, etc. [5][6][7]. In all analyzed studies, the authors applied different statistical tools for processing data collected by questionnaire surveys [5].…”