Overview of resilience: A concept to assess healthcare infrastructure preparedness against disasters. Evaluation of existing models and applicability to HVAC systems

Abstract

Healthcare infrastructures are critical and have elements which are likely to fail or to get collapsed in disaster scenarios (earthquakes, pandemics, etc.). There are many parameters and factors to evaluate their preparedness, but resilience has outstood in recent investigations. Hospitals must not only be prepared for disasters to come, but also to reach the nominal operation in the aftermath as soon as possible, as these infrastructures play a critical role in modern societies. The aim of the study is to evaluate and assess different insights into resilience, as well as marking possible improvements, providing a deeper understanding about the topic and concepts that surround the definition of resilience. The result is the constitution of a new assessment tool based on semi-quantitative and quantitative models. The model can be scaled and applied to internal systems in healthcare infrastructure such as HVAC facilities.