Integrated evaluation of hospital safety: implications on resilience and welfare of communities

Abstract

The Strategy of Safe Hospitals from Disasters promoted by the World Health Organization suggests the evaluation of the physical vulnerability of facilities as well as the socioeconomic fragility of communities. According to this goal, this work presents a Hospital Risk Index by considering: a) structural vulnerability, which is considered by means of capacity and fragility curves, b) non-structural vulnerability, related to the fragility of contents, medical equipment, architectonic elements, and lifelines, c) response capacity, that evaluates the quality of emergency and contingency plans, workforces and communication and information systems, d) supply indicators refers to the size and attention level of the hospital and e) fragility and resilience of the community. These indicators are applied to the public hospitals of Catalonia, Spain, resulting in a decision-making tool for setting priorities for risk management of health systems.