Hospital workers: Who are essential personnel during a disaster?

Introduction: Hospital plans often vary when it comes to the functions that are included in emergency and incident management positions. There is no set standard which describes what roles within a hospital are essential to the ability to respond to and recover from a disaster or public health emergency.

Methods: 31 hospitals in the 7 county northern metropolitan New York City region were surveyed to determine which specific functional roles were essential to their hospital's emergency and disaster plan. Furthermore, hospitals were asked to estimate the percentage of their “essential” staff that were trained to perform the critical duties based on their hospital plans.

Results: Only 3 categories of hospital personnel were consistently reported to be “essential” to all hospitals emergency preparedness plans: ED Physicians, ED Support Staff, and ED Nurses. Some hospitals reported that staff members have received no training in their anticipated role based on the hospital emergency response plan. Allied health professionals and EMTs/Paramedics had the least amount of training on their role in the hospital preparedness/response plan 33.3% and 22.2% respectively.

Conclusion: Although their may be general consensus that staff in emergency departments may be considered essential during a disaster or public health emergency, training may not be provided to these staff members to perform their critical functional roles. Sustainable training programs need to be designed which involve all staff, to increase knowledge of their individual roles and responsibilities during a disaster.