Abstract
BackgroundHospital disaster resilience can be defined as a hospital’s ability to resist, absorb, and respond to the shock of disasters while maintaining critical functions, and then to recover to its original state or adapt to a new one. This study aims to explore the status of resilience among tertiary hospitals in Shandong Province, China.MethodsA stratified random sample (n = 50) was derived from tertiary A, tertiary B, and tertiary C hospitals in Shandong Province, and was surveyed by questionnaire. Data on hospital characteristics and 8 key domains of hospital resilience were collected and analysed. Variables were binary, and analysed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies.ResultsA response rate of 82% (n = 41) was attained. Factor analysis identified four key factors from eight domains which appear to reflect the overall level of disaster resilience. These were hospital safety, disaster management mechanisms, disaster resources and disaster medical care capability. The survey demonstrated that in regard to hospital safety, 93% had syndromic surveillance systems for infectious diseases and 68% had evaluated their safety standards. In regard to disaster management mechanisms, all had general plans, while only 20% had specific plans for individual hazards. 49% had a public communication protocol and 43.9% attended the local coordination meetings. In regard to disaster resources, 75.6% and 87.5% stockpiled emergency drugs and materials respectively, while less than a third (30%) had a signed Memorandum of Understanding with other hospitals to share these resources. Finally in regard to medical care, 66% could dispatch an on-site medical rescue team, but only 5% had a ‘portable hospital’ function and 36.6% and 12% of the hospitals could surge their beds and staff capacity respectively. The average beds surge capacity within 1 day was 13%.ConclusionsThis study validated the broad utility of a framework for understanding and measuring the level of hospital resilience. The survey demonstrated considerable variability in disaster resilience arrangements of tertiary hospitals in Shandong province, and the difference between tertiary A hospitals and tertiary B hospitals was also identified in essential areas.
Highlights
Hospital disaster resilience can be defined as a hospital’s ability to resist, absorb, and respond to the shock of disasters while maintaining critical functions, and to recover to its original state or adapt to a new one
Since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, substantial resources have been devoted to improving disaster resilience in China, with a particular emphasis on mitigating the impact of wide-spread infectious diseases and mass casualty incidents [1,2]
Hospital disaster resources (Factor 3) Our results revealed that 75.6% of the participating hospitals had stockpiles of emergency drugs, and 43.9% had signed contracts with emergency drug-supplies to provide drugs during emergencies, only 22.0% had signed Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) with other hospitals to share emergency drugs during emergencies. 48.8% had drug-distribution plans to identify distribution priority of drugs during crisis, and 41.5% could be able to load and deliver emergency drugs for on-site rescue
Summary
Hospital disaster resilience can be defined as a hospital’s ability to resist, absorb, and respond to the shock of disasters while maintaining critical functions, and to recover to its original state or adapt to a new one. Tertiary hospitals are the key component, as they are the main providers of health care during disasters They provide leadership during response phase of a disaster, and represent a critical linkage for disaster management for the whole system. The resilience of hospitals can be defined as their ability to resist, absorb, and respond to the shock of disasters while maintaining critical functionality, and to recover to their original state or adapt to a new one [8,9,10,11,12]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
