Global disaster nurse preparedness: Moving from reserve to rapid action

Abstract

The brutality of the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks has placed a laser focus on the health impact of increasing global instability. Climate change, disaster, human conflict and war are changing our environment. Members of our profession recognize that nurses are critical to the protection of human health following disasters, large-scale public health emergencies (PHEs) and terrorist events. Despite this irrefutable fact and repeated calls for advancing nurse preparedness and disaster nursing science, many nurses across the world do not possess the knowledge, skills and abilities that they will need to be able to participate in a timely and appropriate manner during a disaster response. This lack of preparedness has significant implications for the ability of global healthcare systems to mount effective response and recovery initiatives. From Europe, Africa, and the Americas, across Australia and the countries of the Pacific Rim, the need for global nursing collaboration to advance nurse readiness has never been greater. The purpose of this paper is to describe the growing risk to human health created by naturally occurring and human-caused disasters, the resultant demand for healthcare services in the midst of a global shortage in the healthcare workforce, and the need for greater international collaboration in preparing nurses to respond to disaster events. Strategic efforts to prepare a global nursing workforce for disaster and public health emergency response can contribute to improvement in quality of care rendered, protection of the safety of nurses, victims and their families, and can ultimately contribute to improved population-based health outcomes.