Citation

Munasinghe NL, O'Reilly G, Cameron P, De Alwis S, Herath HDB. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 2023; 95: e103866.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103866

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The 2005 World Conference on Disaster Reduction promoted the "Safe Hospitals" concept, which ensures that all new hospitals are built with a level of resilience that strengthens their capacity to remain operational in disaster situations. Also, the model endorsed the implementation of mitigation measures to strengthen existing health facilities. So far, there is no widely accepted and validated toolkit for conducting hospital disaster preparedness assessments in Sri Lanka. To address this shortcoming, this study aimed to create a comprehensive hospital disaster preparedness evaluation tool for Sri Lanka. A modified Delphi technique was used to develop this toolkit. The Delphi panel consisted of 18 local experts in health disaster management. A draft toolkit was prepared by the research team using the knowledge gained through an extensive literature review. The panel of experts rated the importance of each indicator in the draft toolkit on a five-point Likert Scale, ranging from extremely important to not at all important. Also, they were requested to suggest new indicators to improve the toolkit. Three rounds of Delphi process were conducted to obtain the consensus. To be included in the final toolkit ≥80% agreement was required for any indicator. All the indicators which failed to obtain 80% agreement were rejected at the third round. A comprehensive toolkit for hospital disaster preparedness was developed through the consensus of local experts based on an all-hazards approach. The finalized toolkit was comprised of 142 indicators under 15 themes designed on the 4S's domains of preparedness; space, stuff, staff and systems.

Language: en

Keywords

Delphi study; Disaster preparedness; Hospital; Toolkit