Hospital preparedness measures for biological hazards
Citation: Dowlati M, Seyedin H, Moslehi S. Hospital Preparedness Measures for Biological Hazards: A Systematic Review and Meta-Synthesis. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. 2021;15(6):790-803.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: No.
Funding sources: Iran University of Medical Sciences.
What is this? Being prepared to adequately handle biological hazards is an important aspect of hospital preparedness for emergencies and disasters.
In this systematic review, the authors searched for studies of hospital preparedness for disasters that had considered at least one type of biological hazard. They restricted their searches to articles published in English and did the search in June 2019. They included 23 studies.
What was found: Hospital preparedness measures for biological hazards include administrative and management, specialized and logistical measures (see below), but the included studies found that hospitals were generally not prepared to manage biological hazards or protect victims and personnel.
Administrative and management measures include planning for hospital preparedness, development of HICS, collaboration with external agencies, risk communications, effective education and practical exercises and risk assessment.
Specialized measures include early detection and surveillance, diagnostic laboratories, psychological management, infection control, personnel protection, decontamination and specialized biological teams.
Logistical measures include increasing capability, supplies and equipment, physical space, personnel organization, volunteers and hospital security.
Implications: The authors of the review concluded that hospital preparedness plans are crucial for being able to respond to a biological hazard, and that hospital managers need to be better prepared to respond to such hazards.
Other considerations: The authors of the review discussed their findings in the context of occupation.
This summary was prepared by Jeremy Scudder, checked by Yasmeen Saeed and Cristián Mansilla, and finalized by Mike Clarke.