Abstract
In contemporary “high-risk” society, unexpected disasters (epidemics and extreme weather) and chronic pressures (aging problems) put tremendous pressure on healthcare facilities. Enhancing the healthcare facilities' resilience ability to resist, absorb, and respond to disaster disruptions is urgent. This study presents a scientometric review for healthcare facility resilience research. A total of 374 relevant articles published between 2000 and 2020, collected from Web of Science (WoS) core collection database, Scopus database and MEDLINE database were reviewed and analyzed. The results indicated that research on resilience in healthcare facilities went through three development periods, and the research involved countries or institutions that are relatively scattered. The studies have been focused on the subject categories of engineering, public, environmental, and occupational health. The keywords of “resilience,” “hospital,” “disaster,” “healthcare,” and “healthcare facility” had the most frequency. Furthermore, based on the literature co-citation networks and content analysis, the detected seven co-citation clusters were grouped into four knowledge domains: climate change impact, strengthening resilience in response to war and epidemic, resilience assessment of healthcare facility, and the applications of information system. Moreover, the timeline view of literature reflected the evolution of each domain. Finally, a knowledge map for resilience of healthcare facilities was put forward, in which critical research contents, current knowledge gaps, and future research work were discussed. This contribution will promote researchers and practitioners to detect the hot topics, fill the knowledge gaps, and extend the body of research on resilience of healthcare facilities.
Highlights
In a modern “high-risk” society, the aging population is increasing at an astonishing rate, alongside many disasters that frequently occur, such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and epidemics [1, 2]
The healthcare facilities are regarded as an elaborate network of buildings, services and relevant public and private sectors for providing and delivering healthcare service for the general public [5], including the national/regional healthcare systems and the single healthcare
A comprehensive knowledge map for healthcare facility resilience” (HFR) is put forward (Figure 8) based on the aforementioned scientometric review and deep content analysis
Summary
In a modern “high-risk” society, the aging population is increasing at an astonishing rate, alongside many disasters that frequently occur, such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and epidemics [1, 2]. A single healthcare facility is composed of a set of interdependent components, such as medical staff, medical resources, medical equipment, physical building structures and equipment systems [e.g., “heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system,” elevators, and power systems] [6]. The increasing healthcare demand and disaster events threaten healthcare facilities’ functionality [7–11]. In such a situation, healthcare facilities are expected to maintain or even increase their capacity to provide continuous healthcare service even if they are directly affected by disasters. It’s the ability to prepare for, manage (absorb and adapt) and learn from shocks [12]. This concept provides a new thinking paradigm for facilitating the healthcare facilities’ sustainable operation in the face of disaster disruptions
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