Hospital Disaster Preparedness

Every hospital or medical facility in the U.S. needs to prepare for and be ready to respond to disasters, whether they be internal or external to the facility.

As an example of how effective hospital disaster preparedness can impact a facility’s ability to respond effectively to a disaster, you can read an article in the Bronchus, the Quarterly Nerwsletter of the Minnesota Society for Respiratory Care, by Judy Hannigan, Director of the Respiratory Care Department at Hennepin County Medical Center, on the August 1, 2007, I-35W Bridge Collapse in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, which appears on the Respiratory Care page of this web site.

View the 2007 Fall Issue of the Bronchus here

Hospital Incident Command System (HICS)

OSEI Image of the Day

NOAA Fire Weather Information Center

WxWorx

Privacy policies and important legal stuff

Notice: This web site is copyrighted. The information and links contained herein are provided “as is,” and even though every effort has been made to assure their accuracy, no guarantee of accuracy is to be assumed, and is not claimed.

The Hospital Incident Command System, or HICS (formerly HEICS), was recently released by the California EMS Office, and now is available. You can download the new materials by clicking on the link below.

California EMSA HICS site

Resources for healthcare organizations are also available from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).

Select Hospital Disaster Preparedness Resources

American Hospital Association - Emergency Readiness

American Medical Association - Center for Public Health Preparedness and Disaster Response

American College of Emergency Physicians - Disaster Medicine

American College of Physicians - Bioterrorism Resources

Healthcare Worker Competencies for Disaster Training

Links to Articles

Hospital Disaster Preparedness in the United States: New Issues, New Challenges

VHA Health Foundation - A Checklist for Hospital Disaster Preparedness

CMAJ Nov 21 2006

Development of a triage protocol for critical care during an influenza pandemic - pdf version

© Copyright 2006-2008 Emergency and Disaster Preparedness Services. All Rights Reserved.