Citation

Schultz CH, Koenig KL, Auf der Heide E, Olson R. Prehosp. Disaster Med. 2005; 20(5): 331-342.

Affiliation

Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California-Irvine Medical Center, Orange, California 92668, USA. schultzc@uci.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Cambridge University Press)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

16295171

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 evacuation decision-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.