Disaster preparedness and resilience for hospitals: lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Hospital disaster preparedness and resilience are crucial in managing disasters, especially the vulnerabilities of hospitals across the globe revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the need for a robust framework to handle future disasters effectively. This research carries out a comprehensive literature review to identify major weaknesses in current hospital disaster preparedness and resilience strategies and proposes a comprehensive framework to enhance hospital resilience in Lagos state hospitals, Nigeria.In relation to the existing studies reviewed, key themes were used as an assessment tool: they include the 4S domains, namely, Staff, Stuff, Space and Systems. The proposed framework is centered around six building blocks which includes, governance and leadership, financial stability, workforce competency, flexibility in healthcare delivery, local-level preparedness tools and continuous learning to ensure that hospitals can respond and recover from disaster effectively. By drawing lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and analyzing comparative studies, this research provides a framework that can help build resilient hospitals capable of adapting to dynamic situations.