Australia: How well equipped are hospitals to respond to crises?

The Croakey blog presents a study of Dr Deon Canyon, from the Disaster Health and Crisis Management Unit at James Cook University in Townsville, which reports clear preparedness deficiencies in hospitals and health organisations in Australia, showing that health facilities are capable of dealing with certain common, expected and extraordinary threats, such as disasters, but not for what they consider unlikely or what they have not experienced.

The study asserts that planners lack sufficient awareness of the actual threats encountered by their organisations; that several important areas are not adequately monitored or assessed; that existing hospital standards based on standard risk management processes render health institutions significantly unprepared; and urges Australian health managers to become proactive to make their organisations more responsible, accountable, sustainable and prepared.