Every day, societies worldwide are impacted by various kinds of natural disasters that are increasing in frequency and intensity. Such events may adversely affect many systems and activities, including endangering lives and the safety of local populations. Therefore, a disaster-resilient hospital must have a preparedness plan that guides the hospital (decision-makers and policymakers) to best manage and grow after unforeseeable natural disasters. Assessing hospital disaster planning and preparedness and identifying hospital performance during disasters could provide decision-makers with valuable lessons and recommendations to enhance future climate change adaptation and resilience. Globally, there are several models for hospitals “learning from disasters”. However, in practice, most hospitals still need to undertake such learning.
This study aims to address the following overarching research question: How can hospitals improve their resilience and ensure business continuity during disasters? through the following research questions:
- What makes hospitals able to continue their core business during disasters?
- How could Resilient Engineering (RE) principles be applied in hospitals?
- How are disaster planning and preparedness addressed, documented and evaluated in hospitals?
- How can hospitals enhance their capabilities for business continuity locally and as part of the clinical health care sector?
This study adopts the philosophical worldview of pragmatism. Within this pragmatist worldview, a qualitative case-study design has been adopted. The study included three phases. In the first, two systematic literature review studies were conducted. In the second phase, in-depth interviews with hospital managers in two hospitals in Queensland were conducted. These interviewees included senior hospital managers (experts who have provided leadership during disasters) and direct managers (practitioners who have worked through the catastrophes (e.g., bushfires, floods, covid19, locally significant incidents). The third phase entails synthesising a case study and extant literature review.
It is expected that this project leads to the development of a conceptualised ‘Hybrid Resilience Learning Framework’ to guide hospitals’ decision-makers in evaluating organisational resilience and learning. In addition, it proposes an ‘Innovative Resilient Hospitals Decision-Support Model', expecting to enable a resilient workforce to deal with consecutive and concurrent disasters.
