Crisis preparedness capabilities in health

Abstract

An organization’s preparedness agenda bears a direct relationship to its crisis response capabilities and its capacity to respond to and manage a crisis. To clarify the current level of crisis capabilities, this study investigates the level of capacity that exists in health and allied health organizations by assessing the level of planning in existence for eleven different types of crises. This evidence-based study draws on responses provided by executive decision-makers from chiropractic, physiotherapy and podiatry practices, dental and medical clinics, pharmacies, aged care facilities, and hospitals. Results show that physiotherapy, podiatry and chiropractic practices possess little crisis capacity, pharmacies are somewhat capable and medical clinics, hospitals and aged care organizations are somewhat to reasonably capable. Dental clinics are an anomaly since their performance is similar to allied health organizations rather than to health organizations. The data suggest that the organizations surveyed have fallen into the pattern of developing capabilities for certain common, expected threats rather than for what they consider unlikely or what they have not experienced. The presence of a disconnect between what is planned for and what is actually experienced is of considerable concern because it suggests that planners lack sufficient awareness of threats that their organizations encounter.