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CDC: Hospitals Quick in Revising EM Plans but Ventilator Shortage Persists

Emergency Management Alert, August 28, 2007

Work at a nonprofit or proprietary hospital? Figures released this week from the CDC show your facility is more likely to be prepared for terrorism or a natural disaster than any other type of hospital. The study, "Emergency Response Planning in Hospitals, United States: 2003-2004," showed that "state and local government hospitals were behind nonprofits and proprietary hospitals in planning for biological, chemical, nuclear, and explosive attacks, and behind nonprofit hospitals in levels of ...disaster preparedness resources except decontamination showers." If you work for an urban hospital, you're ahead of rural hospitals in planning for explosive attacks--81 percent of urban hospitals had an emergency response plan addressing biological terrorism.

Has pressure from The Joint Commission influenced any of this? One might say so: "JCAHO-accredited hospitals addressed natural disaster, biological, chemical, radiological, and explosive incidents more frequently than non-accredited hospitals," says the CDC. 

The objective of the study was to provide a baseline assessment of hospital characteristics associated with better disaster preparedness because federal funding was not yet well established at the hospital level, says the CDC.

Other tidbits:

• About 92 percent of hospitals had revised their emergency response plans since September 11, 2001, but only about 63 percent had addressed natural disasters and biological, chemical, radiological, and explosive terrorism
• More than three quarters of hospitals (78.8 percent) reported defining their role in community-wide planning, and where appropriate, being integrated into this planning; and 77.6 percent engaged in cooperative planning with other local healthcare facilities
• Although 79 percent of hospitals engaged in cooperative planning with other facilities, only 52 percent had actual written agreements to be able to transfer patients during a disaster
• Hospitals nationwide have available an average of only 12 mechanical ventilators each

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