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. 2009 Jun 3:17:26.
doi: 10.1186/1757-7241-17-26.

Hospital-related incidents; causes and its impact on disaster preparedness and prehospital organisations

Amir Khorram-Manesh  1 , Annika Hedelin, Per Ortenwall
Affiliations

Hospital-related incidents; causes and its impact on disaster preparedness and prehospital organisations

Amir Khorram-Manesh et al. Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med. .

Abstract

Background: A hospital's capacity and preparedness is one of the important parts of disaster planning. Hospital-related incidents, a new phenomenon in Swedish healthcare, may lead to ambulance diversions, increased waiting time at emergency departments and treatment delay along with deterioration of disaster management and surge capacity. We aimed to identify the causes and impacts of hospital-related incidents in Region Västra Götaland (western region of Sweden).

Methods: The regional registry at the Prehospital and Disaster Medicine Center was reviewed (2006-2008). The number of hospital-related incidents and its causes were analyzed.

Results: There were an increasing number of hospital-related incidents mainly caused by emergency department's overcrowdings, the lack of beds at ordinary wards and/or intensive care units and technical problems at the radiology departments. These incidents resulted in ambulance diversions and reduced the prehospital capacity as well as endangering the patient safety.

Conclusion: Besides emergency department overcrowdings, ambulance diversions, endangering patient s safety and increasing risk for in-hospital mortality, hospital-related incidents reduces and limits the regional preparedness by minimizing the surge capacity. In order to prevent a future irreversible disaster, this problem should be avoided and addressed properly by further regional studies.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Shows the number and causes of healthcare related incidents for year 2006 until 2008 in diagram. T: Technical dysfunction at radiology department. ED-O: Emergency Department Overcrowding. H*: Hospital Bed Shortage Ordinary Wards. H**: Hospital Bed Shortage Intensive Care Units. H***: Hospital Bed Shortage Intensive Care Units Respirator.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Shows the number of incidents per year and hospitals A-L. Hospital D represents the smallest hospital among five regional hospitals with 24 h emergency departments.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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