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Benchmarking for Hospital Evacuation: A Critical Data Collection Tool

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Carl H. Schultz ,
Kristi L. Koenig ,
Erik Auf der Heide  and
Robert Olson
Carl H. Schultz*
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California-Irvine Medical Center, Orange, California, USA
Kristi L. Koenig
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California-Irvine Medical Center, Orange, California, USA Professor of Emergency Medicine, University of California-Irvine College of Medicine, Irvine, California, USA
Erik Auf der Heide
Affiliation:
Medical Officer, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, US Department of Health and Human Services, Atlanta, GeorgiaUSA
Robert Olson
Affiliation:
Principal, Robert Olson Associates, Folsom, California, USA
*
Department of Emergency MedicineRoute #128UCI Medical Center101 City DriveOrange, California 92668USA E-mail: schultzc@uci.edu
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Abstract

In events such as earthquakes or terrorist attacks, hospitals may be victims of disasters. They may need to transfer patients to outside facilities rather than continue to provide on-site care. Following the Northridge earthquake, eight hospitals in the damaged area were the foci of a United States National Science Foundation study that examined the status of the hospitals' pre-event planning, post-event evacuationdecision-making, and internal and external evacuation processes. Building on this experience, this paper offers a standardized data collection tool, which will enable researchers to record hospital evacuation information in a systematic manner so that comparable data can be accumulated, evacuation research methods can be improved, and consensus on methods can be reached. The study's principal subjects include: (1) hospital demographics; (2) description of existing disaster response plans; (3) an event's impacts on hospital operations; (4) decision-making and incident command; (5) movement of patients within the facility; (6) movement of patients to off-site institutions; and (7) hospital recovery.

Keywords

datacollection ofdisasterearthquakeevacuationeventhospitalincident commandplanningrecoveryresearchtooltransfer
Type
Special Reports
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 20 , Issue 5 , October 2005 , pp. 331 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2005

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