Healthcare facilities need to plan for emergencies, being ready for anything helps in saving the lives of casualties. There are many measures that healthcare facilities take into action to respond to emergencies. Through contingency planning, organizations can respond to significant events that may happen or will happen in the future effectively. Moreover, apart from planning to become a plan for the future, they can also be used to remedy situations if the current working plan fails to meet the needs of the organization. Every organization has a possibility of an occurrence that may negatively impact its operations. If the organizations fail to have a plan or have a policy that fails to give an adequate outline for disaster response, then disasters may impact the future of the organizations negatively. This paper will discuss contingency planning for a healthcare organization.
The best time to prepare for tragedies is not well defined for all the disasters. Some disasters are predicted, but the weather department such as tsunamis, earthquakes, and floods, these are the type of emergency that needs prior attention as per (Sicherer et al., 2017) While the best time to prepare for disasters is not well defined, there are some factors that can be paced into considerations such as the geographical area . Some geographic areas are prone to flooding and hence, the best time to prepare is before the rainy seasons. Moreover, organizations should be made ready at all times to avoid the aftermath of incompetence
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Healthcare organizations are the most essential and crucial places that need proper preparation for disaster management (Alaska et al., 2017). The members must be selected carefully to ensure that each of the relevant perceptions is shared equally across the facility, and all the areas have been covered (Sicherer et al., 2017). The significant personnel includes physician, patients, insurance country, and the drug stores. The physician ensures the patients receive adequate and appropriate healthcare, involving the physicians to ensure that during the times of disaster, there is a chance of all the physicians availing themselves to attend to casualties. Every individual has the right to healthcare. Hence the government takes part in ensuring that financial support if the offer to the hospitals in times of need to ensure all rescued individuals care. During the tomes of disasters, insurance companies need to find the existence of a balance between the services offered and profits as per ( Tsakiris 2017). The pharmaceuticals play an essential role in the providence of medication for patients; there will be a need for more drugs during catastrophes; hence, there is a need to prepare the pharmacists.
Before an event, there are some of the critical metrics; this includes the error rates, the ratio between the patient and nurse. According to Gowan, Sloan & Kirk (2015), there are essential strategies that ensure that these assessments are met. During disasters, some policies can be implemented during the events or emergencies, actions that need to be taken either sheltering or evacuating the casualties. Different activities require different activities, and for this to happen, there is a need for information flow. This includes communication between the individuals in the field and the ones at the hospital. Consequently, Tsakiris (2017) suggest that, after the event, it is critical and mandatory to record the flow of casualties in and out of the organization and in different departments.
Angeler & Allen (2016) deduce that the measure of resilience could be either done numerically or assessed based on the available resources. Human resources such as nurses and doctors and the physical such as medical equipment are resources that can be used to measure the level of preparedness of a healthcare organization to a disaster. Moreover, the number of finances spent on managing these events can also tell a lot when assessed. These metrics are important because they dictate the level of readiness an organization is, moreover, through evaluating these elements, the areas that need reinforcement can be identified.
The impending is impossible, but to plan for the unexpected is necessary, contingency plan comes in to aid in preparedness. It is vital to have a plan because the future external impacts may affect the ability of the organizations to perform effectively and also help the organization to run smoothly after the organization. Additionally, Alaska et al., (2017) allude that, plans help to utilize resources in the times of high activities and also help to meet customer satisfaction. According to Angeler & Allen (2016), during disasters healthcare facilities are one of the most basic facilities to help casualties recover and get healthcare support. Knowing my organization is prepared is essential, and this can be deduced from information gathered. This is through the facilities available at the hospital and the increased size of the emergency department and wards. Consequently, highly skilled personnel depict readiness to serve an increased number of individuals. Therefore, there is some percentage of assurance to preparedness for any occurrence and surety of effective performance all through the department, as discussed by (Angeler & Allen 2016).
Conclusion
Using questionable processes, organizations can come up with plans that help curb the unexpected. Identifying this gap in an organization has been filled with contingency plans to help reedy the unexpected scenarios that will affect the performance and even impair the recovery of operations. Contingency plans, however, come with related costs and companies and organizations need to come up with a financial plan to help cover the situation comprehensively, it is essential to involve all the individuals who are likely to be affected directly or indirectly by the impending consequences of disasters.
References
Alaska, Y. A Khan, A. A., & Shalhoub, A. A. (2017). Evaluation of disaster preparedness for mass casualty incidents in private hospitals Central Saudi Arabia (Links to an external site.). Saudi Medical Journal, 38(3), 302–306.
Angeler, D. G., & Allen, C. R. (2016). Quantifying resilience. Journal of Applied Ecology, 53(3), 617-624.
Gowan, M. E., Sloan, J. A., & Kirk, R. C. (2015). Prepared for what? Addressing the disaster readiness gap beyond preparedness for survival. BMC public health, 15(1), 1139.
Sicherer, S. H., Allen, K., Lack, G., Taylor, S. L., Donovan, S. M., & Oria, M. (2017). Critical issues in food allergy: a national academies consensus report. Pediatrics, 140(2), e20170194.
Tsakiris, G. (2017). Drought risk assessment and management. Water Resources Management, 31(10), 3083-3095.
