Partner, Plan, Prepare: Improving Hospital Disaster Response

Sun. 3:30-5:00 p.m., Spruce

Numerous emergency management guidelines, regulations, and accreditation standards have been established to improve hospital disaster response capabilities. Nonetheless, these standards often lack specificity. Moreover, no scientifically rigorous standards exist for assessing hospital preparedness. This session will focus on efforts to address this gap by better understanding hospital readiness and wil discuss key considerations in developing valid, reliable measures of the impact of "readiness" on all aspects of response.

Discussion will include planning impacts on the evacuations of U.S. Veterans Administration hospitals during Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy, a VA assessment tool designed to determine hospital readiness, emergency management collaborations between VA and non-VA organizations, the challenges of designing exercise-based measures of readiness, and the importance of capturing the long-term health consequences of disasters.

Aram Dobalian, Moderator
Veterans Emergency Management Evaluation Center

Fred Hagigi, Panelist
Veterans Emergency Management Evaluation Center

Pamela Bourg, Panelist
St. Anthony Central Hospital

Claudia Der-Martirosian, Panelist
Veterans Emergency Management Evaluation Center

Karen Ricci, Panelist
Veterans Emergency Management Evaluation Center

Organizer: Aram Dobalian, Veterans Emergency Management Evaluation Center