Download or read book Protecting New Health Facilities from Natural Disasters written by Tarina Garcia Concheso and published by PAHO. This book was released on 2003 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Technical knowledge and experience have taught us that it is possible to reduce the risks of disaster damage to new health facilities but the issue now needs greater visibility in political and development agendas in Latin America and the Caribbean.This publication is an overview of guidelines and includes recommendations on how to promote their use among national authorities, planners and financing agencies involved in the development of projects. It emphasizes the substantial social and economic benefits of applying disaster mitigation measures to the design, planning and construction of health facilities.
Download or read book Guidelines for Vulnerability Reduction in the Design of New Health Facilities written by Pan-American Health Organization and published by PAHO. This book was released on 2004 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When struck by large-scale natural disasters, hospital services are often interrupted temporarily or permanently, mainly due to damage to their infrastructure, causing loss of capital investment, and impacting on the wellbeing and socio-economic development of the population and the country. In recent years, various PAHO/WHO member states have managed to reduce the vulnerability of their hospitals. Even countries with limited financial resources can provide hospitals and other health facilities that are resistant to earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural hazards. This publication puts forward three levels of protection: (1) life safety - ensuring that the building will not collapse and that any injuries that occur will not put the lives of patients and staff at risk; (2) investment protection - significantly reducing structural and non-structural damage; and (3) functional protection - guaranteeing that the facilities will continue to operate with a minimum of disruption. Experience has shown that applying these levels of protection to the construction of a new hospital adds only four per cent to the total cost of the project. Applying innovative approaches when designing and selecting the site of a new facility can improve its safety and efficiency without significantly increasing overall costs.
Download or read book Natural Disasters written by Pan American Health Organization and published by Pan American Health Org. This book was released on 2000 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes statistics.
Download or read book Preventing the Perfect Storm What Every Hospital and Nursing Home Needs to Know for a Natural Disaster written by John B. Vaterlaus and published by Bookstand Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the apparent increase in natural disasters occurring throughout the world, health care providers face a significant challenge in providing reasonable care and protecting their patients during and after natural disasters. Health care providers not only must meet the challenges of the natural disaster, but they must also confront the aftereffects of the catastrophe. However, providers must also brace themselves for a new looming storm. When the woeful unpreparedness of some nursing homes and hospitals combines with patient harm and injury, financial loss, and legal liability, these providers face an impending and menacing "perfect storm," one potentially created of their own doing. Providers should take action to deliver adequate care, protect patients and improve safety -- thus avoiding an additional disaster. Health care providers may do so by developing effective emergency plans, selecting appropriate building sites, conscientiously planning and designing facilities with natural disasters in mind, properly developing and sustaining communication plans and infrastructure, and constructing, operating, and maintaining health care facilities to withstand, or minimize, the effects of natural disasters. While taking these precautions is not without cost or drawback, hospitals and nursing homes must take additional steps to confront the increased challenges of the escalating occurrence of natural disasters and improve patient safety. By enhancing health care facilities and limiting patient harm, health care providers will prevent a natural disaster from becoming the provider's own "perfect storm."
Download or read book A Safer Future written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1991-02-01 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Initial priorities for U.S. participation in the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, declared by the United Nations, are contained in this volume. It focuses on seven issues: hazard and risk assessment; awareness and education; mitigation; preparedness for emergency response; recovery and reconstruction; prediction and warning; learning from disasters; and U.S. participation internationally. The committee presents its philosophy of calls for broad public and private participation to reduce the toll of disasters.
Download or read book Healthcare Infrastructure Resilience and Climate Change written by Virendra Kumar Paul and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-20 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book highlights the vulnerability of healthcare buildings in the context of climate change-triggered extreme weather events (EWEs) and the case for mitigation. With a concise discussion on climate change and its consequences in the form of such events, a cost model and equations that register losses and help quantify them are then presented. The model can be used to estimate the significant potential loss that might occur during an EWE and help healthcare facilities prepare for them. The book analyses cases of major EWEs in India over the last two decades and collates the data available into various categories. Through this research the authors have developed a framework which assists healthcare facilities with a detailed calculation of value losses, both tangible and intangible. The framework can be used to assess the impacts on healthcare buildings in terms of disruption of services so that appropriate decisions related to the resilience in healthcare planning can be taken into consideration. Thus, the book is useful for directing planning and design processes aimed at continuity of service and building resilience to perform in the face of natural disaster and extreme weather. The purpose of this book is to prompt facilities planners and healthcare facilities to prepare to respond to EWEs through the planning and design process in a rational manner. Built infrastructure professionals such as architects and engineers, policy makers, and academics with an interest in disasters, risk and climate change will all find this book to be key reading.
Download or read book Healthy Resilient and Sustainable Communities After Disasters written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2015-09-10 with total page 535 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the devastation that follows a major disaster, there is a need for multiple sectors to unite and devote new resources to support the rebuilding of infrastructure, the provision of health and social services, the restoration of care delivery systems, and other critical recovery needs. In some cases, billions of dollars from public, private and charitable sources are invested to help communities recover. National rhetoric often characterizes these efforts as a "return to normal." But for many American communities, pre-disaster conditions are far from optimal. Large segments of the U.S. population suffer from preventable health problems, experience inequitable access to services, and rely on overburdened health systems. A return to pre-event conditions in such cases may be short-sighted given the high costs - both economic and social - of poor health. Instead, it is important to understand that the disaster recovery process offers a series of unique and valuable opportunities to improve on the status quo. Capitalizing on these opportunities can advance the long-term health, resilience, and sustainability of communities - thereby better preparing them for future challenges. Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters identifies and recommends recovery practices and novel programs most likely to impact overall community public health and contribute to resiliency for future incidents. This book makes the case that disaster recovery should be guided by a healthy community vision, where health considerations are integrated into all aspects of recovery planning before and after a disaster, and funding streams are leveraged in a coordinated manner and applied to health improvement priorities in order to meet human recovery needs and create healthy built and natural environments. The conceptual framework presented in Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters lays the groundwork to achieve this goal and provides operational guidance for multiple sectors involved in community planning and disaster recovery. Healthy, Resilient, and Sustainable Communities After Disasters calls for actions at multiple levels to facilitate recovery strategies that optimize community health. With a shared healthy community vision, strategic planning that prioritizes health, and coordinated implementation, disaster recovery can result in a communities that are healthier, more livable places for current and future generations to grow and thrive - communities that are better prepared for future adversities.
Download or read book Principles of Disaster Mitigation in Health Facilities written by and published by Pan American Health Org. This book was released on 2000 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on problems encountered in areas of high risk for seismic events. It introduces the essential aspects of carrying out vulnerability assessments and applying practical measures to mitigate damage in hospitals addressing structural and nonstructural aspects as well as administrative and internal organization. In a period of only 15 years between 1981 and 1996 93 hospitals and 538 health care centers in Latin America and the Caribbean were damaged as a consequence of natural disasters. The direct cost of these disasters has been enormous; just as devastating has been the social impact of the loss of these critical facilities at a time when they were most needed. For these reasons special consideration must be given to disaster planning for these facilities. Assessing and reducing their vulnerability to natural hazards is indispensable. Principles of Disaster Mitigation in Health Facilities is an updated compilation of various documents on the topic already published by PAHO/WHO. Sections of previous publications have been revised to address the needs of professionals from a variety of disciplines particularly those involved in health facility planning operation and maintenance. Figures and photographs illustrate situations that can increase disaster vulnerability in health facilities. Examples are given of how countries in Latin America have conducted vulnerability assessments and applied specific disaster mitigation measures in their hospitals and health centers.
Download or read book Examining Challenges and Possible Strategies to Strengthen U S Health Security written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2018-02-14 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the United States continues to adapt to a more digital, mobile, and interconnected world, health care and public health professionals have sought to better prepare for and respond to long-standing and emerging threats to the nation's health security. Health security is the collective effort to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from the health consequences of natural, man-made, and technological disasters. Although substantial progress has been made in the past 15 years toward improving health care and public health systems and capacities for health security threats, many complex challenges persist, and often the nation's preparedness efforts are not sufficient. On March 8â€"9, 2017, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Disasters and Emergencies hosted a two-day public workshop to acknowledge these persistent issues; to evaluate past, and perhaps inadequate, approaches to addressing them; and to discuss intentional and innovative new solutions. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
Download or read book Essentials for Health Protection written by Emily Ying Yang Chan and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019-12-26 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By introducing the four key areas covering both medical and environmental health protection-namely climate change, communicable disease, emergency, and environmental health-and supplemented with appropriate examples, this book aims to help strengthen regional, subnational, national and global health protection.
Download or read book Public Health and Disasters written by Emily Ying Yang Chan and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-02-24 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the health emergency and disaster risk management (H-EDRM) research landscape, with examples from Asia. In recent years, the intersection of health and disaster risk reduction (DRR) has emerged as an important interdisciplinary field. In several landmark UN agreements adopted in 2015–2016, including the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris climate agreement, and the New Urban Agenda (Habitat III), health is acknowledged as an inevitable outcome and a natural goal of disaster risk reduction, and the cross-over of the two fields is essential for the successful implementation of the Sendai Framework. H-EDRM has emerged as an umbrella field that encompasses emergency and disaster medicine, DRR, humanitarian response, community health resilience, and health system resilience. However, this fragmented, nascent field has yet to be developed into a coherent discipline. Key challenges include redundant research, lack of a strategic research agenda, limited development of multisectoral and interdisciplinary approaches, deficiencies in the science–policy–practice nexus, absence of standardized terminology, and insufficient coordination among stakeholders. This book provides a timely and invaluable resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers, scholars, and frontline practitioners as well as policymakers from across the component domains of H-EDRM.
Download or read book Ready Or Not written by Jeffrey Levi and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2011-05 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The severe budget cuts by fed., state, and local governments are leaving public health (PH) departments understaffed and without the basic capabilities required to respond to crises. Nearly 10 years ago during the 9/11 and anthrax tragedies, it became clear the PH system was out-of-date to face modern health threats -- and an historic investment was made to help upgrade the system. Significant progress was made to improve how we prevent, identify, and contain new disease outbreaks and bioterrorism threats and respond to the aftermath of natural disasters. Now, the economic situation is putting almost a decade of gains at risk. The latest budget cuts will exacerbate the vulnerable areas in U.S. emergency health preparedness. A print on demand report.
Download or read book Disaster Health Management written by Gerry FitzGerald and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Disaster health is an emerging field that focuses on developing prevention, preparation, response and recovery systems for dealing with health problems that result from a disaster. As disasters worldwide differ in their nature, scope and cultural context, a thorough understanding of the fundamental tenets of sound disaster health management is essential for both students and practitioners to participate confidently and effectively in the field. Disaster Health Management is the first comprehensive textbook to provide a standard guide to terminology and management systems across the entire spectrum of disaster health. Authored by experienced educators, researchers and practitioners in disaster health management, this textbook provides an authoritative overview of: The conceptual basis for disaster management Systems and structures for disaster management Managing disasters through the continuum of preparedness, response and recovery The variations associated with both natural and technological disasters The strategic considerations associated with leadership, research, education and future directions. Using Australasian systems and structures as examples of generic principles which will find application globally, Disaster Health Management is an essential text for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as for professionals involved in all aspects of disaster management.
Download or read book Enabling Rapid and Sustainable Public Health Research During Disasters written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2015-04-06 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past decade, preparedness and response capacities of government agencies, hospitals and clinics, public health agencies, and academic researchers in the United States and abroad have been challenged by a succession of public health emergencies, ranging from radiological threats to pandemics to earthquakes. Through After Action Reports, each of these emergencies has yielded important information and lessons learned that can inform future disaster response and recovery efforts. However, important information that needs to be collected during and immediately following these emergencies is often missed because of barriers and obstacles to gathering such data, such as varying institutional review board restrictions in different states, no sustainable funding network for this type of work, uncertainty on who should be involved in research response, and a lack of knowledge around how best to integrate research into response and recovery frameworks. Taking action to enable medical and public health research during disasters was the focus of a workshop held on June 12 and 13, 2014, coordinated and supported jointly by the Institute of Medicine Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Catastrophic Events, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Library of Medicine, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Invited speakers and participants from federal, state, and local government, academia, and community and worker organizations came together to discuss how to integrate research into existing response structures; identify critical research needs and priorities; identify obstacles and barriers to research; discuss structures and strategies needed for deployment of a research study; share ideas, innovations, and technologies to support research; and explore data collection tools and data-sharing mechanisms for both rapid and longitudinal research. Enabling Rapid and Sustainable Public Health Research During Disasters summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.
Download or read book Environmental Health in Emergencies and Disasters written by Ben Wisner and published by World Health Organization. This book was released on 2002 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aimed at practitioners, policymakers and researchers, this volume distills knowledge of environmental health during an emergency or disaster. It draws on results from the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction and experience with sustainable development between the two Earth Summits.
Download or read book The Future of Nursing 2020 2030 written by National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The decade ahead will test the nation's nearly 4 million nurses in new and complex ways. Nurses live and work at the intersection of health, education, and communities. Nurses work in a wide array of settings and practice at a range of professional levels. They are often the first and most frequent line of contact with people of all backgrounds and experiences seeking care and they represent the largest of the health care professions. A nation cannot fully thrive until everyone - no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they make - can live their healthiest possible life, and helping people live their healthiest life is and has always been the essential role of nurses. Nurses have a critical role to play in achieving the goal of health equity, but they need robust education, supportive work environments, and autonomy. Accordingly, at the request of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, on behalf of the National Academy of Medicine, an ad hoc committee under the auspices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted a study aimed at envisioning and charting a path forward for the nursing profession to help reduce inequities in people's ability to achieve their full health potential. The ultimate goal is the achievement of health equity in the United States built on strengthened nursing capacity and expertise. By leveraging these attributes, nursing will help to create and contribute comprehensively to equitable public health and health care systems that are designed to work for everyone. The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity explores how nurses can work to reduce health disparities and promote equity, while keeping costs at bay, utilizing technology, and maintaining patient and family-focused care into 2030. This work builds on the foundation set out by The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health (2011) report.
Download or read book Hospital Hazards Disaster Management written by Prof. Muhammadu Sathik Raja and published by Academic Guru Publishing House. This book was released on 2024-02-16 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book "Hospital Hazards & Disaster Management" provides a thorough examination of the essential elements involved in protecting healthcare facilities from unanticipated occurrences. The book explores the complex array of obstacles that hospitals encounter regarding dangers and catastrophes. This book delves deeply into the topic of emergencies that may have a major influence on healthcare institutions, including natural catastrophes and man-made crises. The book provides a comprehensive overview of successful approaches to risk assessment, emergency preparedness, and the execution of resilient disaster management strategies. The significance of providing healthcare professionals with adequate training to effectively manage a wide range of crises is underscored, as it guarantees a synchronized and streamlined reaction. The author provides pragmatic advice on fortifying hospital infrastructure against a variety of perils, including catastrophic events such as infectious disease outbreaks, earthquakes, flooding, and mass casualties. The book "Hospital Hazards & Disaster Management" provides practical recommendations for healthcare practitioners, emergency response teams, as well as hospital administrators, surpassing mere theoretical concepts. The book emphasizes the paramount importance of effective leadership in coordinating a unified and flexible reaction in times of crisis. Medical staff and administrators who are concerned about their organizations' capacity to respond to and recover from disasters will find this book an invaluable resource due to its current knowledge and practical recommendations.
