ABSTRACT
Background: One of the important aspects of hospital preparedness in disasters is implementing early warning system. In this study, the performance of this function was evaluated under the monitoring of disasters workgroup of the Ministry of Health [MOH] based on the national program of "hospitals preparedness in disasters" in Shahid Motahari Hospital
Materials and Methods: This is an interventional study, with a quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test design. This hospital was chosen by MOH as a benchmark for implementing the national disaster programs. The data collecting instrument was the hospital disaster preparedness checklist which evaluates 9 indexes of "command and control," "communications," "safety and security," "triage," "increasing capacity," "continuity of critical services," "human resources," "logistics and supply management," and "recovery after disasters." Data of pretest and posttest were analyzed through nonparametric Wilcoxon test, using SPSS software, version 16
Results: The preparedness score before the intervention was 134, which represents the moderate level of hospital preparedness. The evaluation before and after the intervention indicated that "recovery after disaster" and "triage" had the least change with an increase of one score and the index of "logistics and supply management" had the maximum increase by 5 scores. The overall score of preparedness significantly increased from 134 to 159 [P<0.05] after the intervention, which represents a change from moderate to high hospital preparedness
Conclusion: The preparedness of Shahid Motahari Hospital, which is the only specialized hospital of Tehran in burns, has significantly increased and reached a level of high preparedness to deal with disasters. This study indicates the importance of developing the activation of early warning system in hospitals for rapid and appropriate response to the disasters
ABSTRACT
Background: Hospitals in Iran are not prepared for disasters; the aim of this study was to determine the effect of training functional and nonstructural hospital safety to nurses and their intervention on hospital preparedness in psychiatric Razi Hospital and Day Hospital in Tehran based on Hospital Safety Index [HSI]
Materials and Methods: This semi-experimental study included nurse managers of Razi and Day hospitals as study sample. Research tool was checklist of hospital safety. Validity and reliability of the checklist was determined 93%. At first the checklist was filled out, then preparedness plan including a 1-day workshop about disaster management, functional and nonstructural safety and a table tab maneuvers held. Then, after two months, nonstructural and functional safety of the hospitals was re-evaluated by HSI checklist. Data were analyzed by using Excel file of the tool
Results: Findings showed that scores in most items of nonstructural and functional safety in HSI checklist significantly increased in two hospitals after workshop and nursing performance. Before intervention, these scores were 0.40 and 0.56 for Razi and Day hospitals, respectively which increased to 0.57, 0.86 after training
Conclusion: Results showed that teaching nonstructural and functional safety to nurses and using these principles by nurses can promote hospital safety and preparedness. Comparison between hospitals showed that allocating more budget and executive power to the nurses can increase further the hospital preparedness. Given the key role of nurses in disaster preparedness, it is recommended to teach and apply functional and nonstructural safety of hospitals to nursing managers