Disaster planning for hospitals is very important, usually requiring a board of its own. In recent years, disaster planning for all public buildings has become even more important. Therefore, finding information about disaster planning for hospitals is key to making sure that the hospital disaster plans you are helping to create are comprehensive and work well.
History
Hospitals have always has disaster plans. However, since September 11, 2001, disaster plans have become more commonly talked about and have been created in new ways. Tiffany Kary, from ZDNet.com, says that hospitals and other community centers today have much more detailed plans and go to greater lengths to make sure they account for every imaginable situation. Hospital disaster plans now have different sections for things like fire, break-ins and terrorist attacks, as well as natural disasters.
Considerations
Your disaster plans must include specifics for each of situation: each type of natural disaster will need a separate disaster plan, and each type of terrorist or other type of attack will too. Therefore, your hospital's plans might include twenty or more plans, depending on the various circumstances it might encounter.
Manuals and Budget
Because of the number of disaster plans a hospital might have, your hospital needs manuals for each part of the overall disaster plan, and drills done for each of them as well. Therefore, more of the budget and more time need to be spent on disaster planning.
Benefits
Although it seems like more work to develop plans, write manuals and practice disaster drills, it means that today's disaster plan allow your hospitals to be more covered when it comes to potential disaster. This leads leads to more staff understanding of what to do in the face of a disaster. It also means more lives saved.
Warning
Everyone involved in disaster planning has to understand that in all cases, but especially in a hospital, you might not be able to follow the plan step by step during a disaster. Things might happen that make it difficult to follow certain step. Steps might have to be changed or skipped. Therefore, being able to think on your feet is the best type of plan you can have for disasters.
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