Hospital resilience and safety
When a hospital is destroyed or damaged, dependent communities are left without even basic emergency care. Keeping a hospital safe from natural or human threats goes beyond the protection of the physical structure, and requires preservation of its entire infrastructure as well as a health workforce trained to keep facilities operational. Even in the event of a disaster, a safe hospital can remain accessible functioning at maximum capacity – serving the community when it is most needed.
WHO Regional Office for Europe is continuously conducting hospital vulnerability analyses based on the WHO Hospital Safety Index – 118 hospitals in seven countries in the WHO European Region were assessed using the tool in 2015–2016.The Index is a rapid, reliable way of assessing risk in the health sector. It helps health facilities to manage safety and ensure they don’t become disaster casualties. This work has enabled WHO/Europe to strengthen the resilience of health facilities in emergencies.
Following assessments, WHO provides technical support for the development and implementation of action plans to improve health facility security. This includes the safety of hospital structures and infrastructure, and emergency preparedness training for key staff. Furthermore, WHO promotes national implementation programmes and policies for health facility safety.
Hospital emergency plans
The Hospital Emergency Response plan is a toolkit that describes the necessary procedures, mechanisms and systems for managing response to emergencies and disasters. It focuses on the strategies and the operational aspects for managing the mobilization of resources and for responding to any major health crisis/emergency (internal and external, or both), and to disasters. Its main goal is to ensure reliable and predictable delivery of quality care to patients whatever their needs by increasing the medical surge capacity, and at the same time to continue to deliver critical hospital services to inpatients and to those in the catchment area.
