Why do hospitals most often activate their emergency preparedness plans? The 2014 Emergency Management Survey from Health Facilities Management, the Association for the Healthcare Environment and the Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management, a survey of 911 hospitals, revealed the most common reasons hospitals revert to operating according to their emergency plans:
1. Winter storm — 52 percent
2. Power outages and other system failures — 48 percent
3. Tornado — 20 percent
4. Flood — 17 percent
5. Hurricane — 17 percent
6. Hazardous spill/hazardous material incident — 15 percent
7. Mass casualty incident — 13 percent
8. Fire — 12 percent
9. Emerging infectious diseases, excluding H1N1 — 12 percent
10. Bomb threat — 8 percent
11. Earthquake — 6 percent
12. Evacuation — 5 percent
13. Active shooter incident — 4 percent
14. Mass transit strike or disruption — 2 percent
Of the hospitals that responded to the survey, 13 percent had not experienced a threat or event in the past five years, the timeframe for which the question was posed.
The top barriers to emergency preparedness, according to the survey, included unfunded mandates for emergency preparedness and response (39 percent), time limitations (38 percent), competing resources/spending priorities (36 percent), governmental processes/compliance issues (22 percent) and staff training in response skills (21 percent).
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