A study on risk assessment and countermeasures planning in hospitals during a disaster

摘要

The Japanese nation has experienced a variety of disasters. It is therefore important for hospitals to function as social infrastructures through the Business Continuity Plan, and to construct a Business Continuity Management System (BCMS). To construct a BCMS, Risk Assessment (RA) needs to be conducted. This is necessary to identify, analyze, and evaluate risks that cause business interruptions. Additionally, from the RA results, countermeasures can be created to improve business continuity during disasters. However, the methods of RA and countermeasures planning to be implemented of hospitals during a disaster have not yet been clarified yet. Therefore, in this study, we propose a method for hospitals to conduct RA and countermeasures planning. First, we ensured medical staff at a hospital implemented RA and identified risks. Second, we analyzed the problems for each RA procedure and focused on two major problems: inability to identify risks and inability to take countermeasures. To solve these problems, this study developed two tools. First, we gathered data on the issues hospitals face that are caused by disasters and created a risk list. This enabled medical staff to identify risks more easily. In addition, we created a countermeasures viewpoint list. This assisted medical staff in taking countermeasures.