Hospital Safety Index: Guide for Evaluators. Second Edition

Abstract

[Introduction]. The Hospital Safety Index occupies a central place in local, national and global efforts to improve the functioning of hospitals in emergencies and disasters. This is an area that the World Health Organization (WHO) has promoted and supported for more than 25 years. After the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and WHO released the first version of the Hospital Safety Index in 2008, ministries of health and other health entities, other government ministries and agencies, and public and private hospitals across the six regions of WHO have joined their counterparts in the Americas in applying and adapting the Hospital Safety Index. The growing interest in safe hospitals led to calls from countries and other stakeholders for the revision of Hospital Safety Index to make it a truly global assessment tool that can be used in all contexts across the world. In emergencies, disasters and other crises, a community must be able to protect the lives and well-being of the affected population, particularly in the minutes and hours immediately following impact or exposure. The ability of health services to function without interruption in these situations is a matter of life and death. The continued functioning of health services relies on a number of key factors, namely: that health services are housed in structures (such as hospitals or other facilities) that can resist exposures and forces from all types of hazards; medical equipment is in good working order and is protected from damage; community infrastructure and critical services (such as water, electricity etc.) are available to support the health services; and health personnel are able to provide medical assistance in safe and secure settings when they are most needed... This Guide for evaluators for the Hospital Safety Index provides a step-by-step explanation of how to use the Safe Hospitals Checklist, and how the evaluation can be used to obtain a rating of the structural and nonstructural safety, and the emergency and disaster management capacity, of the hospital. The results of the evaluation enable hospital’s own safety index to be calculated.