Emergency Management for Healthcare

CHAPTER 3

Hazard, Risk, and Vulnerability

Introduction

This chapter deals with the use of a hazard, risk, and vulnerability-based approach to emergency preparedness in all types of healthcare institutions. A hospital or other healthcare institution has an obligation to understand and act upon its own realistic risk and vulnerability exposures; anything less is a failure of “due diligence.” Indeed, risk management is already a major part of the clinical component of operating any hospital; decisions regarding what to treat and what not to treat, or who to keep in a hospital bed and who may be sent home to recuperate, are a daily occurrence for the clinical practitioners working around us. In each case, and in each clinical decision, the practitioner ...