Tools and checklists for evaluating hospital disaster preparedness (search done in 2013)
Citation: Nekoie-Moghadam M, Kurland L, Moosazadeh M, et al. Tools and checklists used for the evaluation of hospital disaster preparedness: A systematic review. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. 2016;10(5):781-788.
Language: Abstract and full text available in EN.
Free to view: No.
Funding sources: Nothing noted.
What is this? In this systematic review, the authors searched for tools that had been used to evaluate the preparedness of hospitals for disasters. They restricted their searches to articles published in English since 1 January 1990 and did the search in October 2013. They included 15 studies, which were conducted in Colombia (1 study), Japan (1), Namibia (2), Pakistan (1), Turkey (1), and the USA (6), and by PAHO/WHO (2) and WHO/Europe (1),
What was found: The articles included in this review identified the following 14 themes as important for evaluating hospital disaster preparedness: (1) logistics and resources, (2) procedures and protocols, (3) human resources, (4) medical care and triage protocol, (5) communication tools and approach, (6) command strategy and control, (7) structural and non-structural resilience, (8) training education and exercises, (9) evacuation logistics and strategy, (10) recovery strategy, (11) coordination, (12) transport logistics, (13) approach to surge capacity, and (14) plans for safety and security.
None of the included articles reported all dimensions necessary for a thorough assessment of hospital preparedness.
Implications: The authors of the review concluded that their results could be used to prepare a comprehensive tool to evaluate hospital preparedness.
Other considerations: The authors of the review did not discuss their findings in the context of issues relating to health equity.
This summary was prepared by Fatima Abbas, checked by Cristián Mansilla and Jawaria Karim, and finalized by Mike Clarke.