Abstract
Immediately after an earthquake a healthcare system within a city, comprising several hospitals, endures an extraordinary demand. This paper proposes a new methodology to estimate whether the hospital network has enough capacity to withstand the emergency caused by an earthquake. The ability of healthcare facilities and to provide a broad spectrum of emergency services immediately after a seismic event is assessed through a metamodel that assumes waiting time as main response parameter to assess the hospital network performance. The First Aid network of San Francisco subjected to a 7.2 Mw magnitude earthquake has been used as case study. The total number of injuries and their distributions among the six major San Francisco’s Emergency Departments have been assessed and compared with their capacity that has been determined using a survey conducted by the medical staff of the hospitals. The numerical results have shown that three of the six considered San Francisco’s hospitals cannot provide emergency services to the estimated injured. Two alternatives have been proposed to improve the performance of the network. The first one redistributes existing resources while the second one considers additional resources by designing a new Emergency Department.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Achour N, Miyajima M, Pascale F and DF Price A (2014), “Hospital Resilience to Natural Gazards: Classification and Performance of Utilities,” Disaster Prevention and Management, 23 (1): 40–52.
Alesch DJ, Arendt LA and Petak WJ (2012), “SB 1953: The Law, the Program, and the Implementation Challenge,” Natural Hazard Mitigation Policy, Springer, 45–60.
Anders S, Woods DD, Wears RL, Perry SJ and Patterson E (2006), “Limits on Adaptation: Modeling Resilience and Brittleness in Hospital Emergency,” Learning from Diversity: Model-Based Evaluation of Opportunities for Process (Re)-Design and Increasing Company Resilience: 1.
Bruneau M, Chang SE, Eguchi RT, Lee GC, O’Rourke TD, Reinhorn AM, Shinozuka M, Tierney K, Wallace WA and Von Winterfeldt D (2003), “A Framework to Quantitatively Assess and Enhance the Seismic Resilience of Communities,” Earthquake Spectra, 19 (4): 733–752.
Cimellaro G, Malavisi M and Mahin S (2018), “Factor Analysis to Evaluate Hospital Resilience,” ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering, 4 (1): 04018002.
Cimellaro GP, Reinhorn AM and Bruneau M (2010), “Seismic Resilience of a Hospital System,” Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, 6 (1–2): 127–144.
Cimellaro GP, Reinhorn AM and Bruneau M (2011), “Performance-Based Metamodel for Healthcare Facilities,” Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics, 40 (11): 1197–1217.
Cimellaro GP, Scura G, Renschler C, Reinhorn AM and Kim H (2014), “Rapid Building Damage Assessment System Using Mobile Phone Technology,” Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration, 13 (3): 519–533.
Cimellaro GP, Villa O and Bruneau M (2014), “Resilience-Based Design of Natural Gas Distribution Networks,” Journal of Infrastructure Systems, 21 (1): 05014005.
Cimellaro GP, Renschler C, Reinhorn AM and Arendt L (2016), “PEOPLES: a Framework for Evaluating Resilience,” Journal of Structural Engineering, 142 (10): 04016063.
Cimellaro GP, Malavisi M and Mahin S (2017), “Using Discrete Event Simulation Models to Evaluate Resilience of an Emergency Department,” Journal of Earthquake Engineering, 21 (2): 203–226.
Downey EL, Andress K and Schultz CH (2013), “External Factors Impacting Hospital Evacuations Caused by Hurricane Rita: the Role of Situational Awareness,” Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, 28 (3): 264–271.
FEMA (2011), “Hazus: FEMA’s Methodology for Estimating Potential Losses from Disasters,” Proceedings of the FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington, D.C.
Garshnek V and Burkle Jr FM (1999), “Telecommunications Systems in Support of Disaster Medicine: Applications of Basic Information Pathways,” Annals of Emergency Medicine, 34 (2): 213–218.
Greco R, Marano GC and Fiore A (2016), “Performance-Cost Optimization of Tuned Mass Damper under Low-Moderate Seismic Actions,” Structural Design of Tall and Special Buildings, 25 (18): 1103–1122.
Jacques CC, McIntosh J, Giovinazzi S, Kirsch TD, Wilson T and Mitrani-Reiser J (2014), “Resilience of the Canterbury Hospital System to the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake,” Earthquake Spectra, 30 (1): 533–554.
Kammouh O, Noori AZ, Taurino V, Mahin SA and Cimellaro GP (2018), “Deterministic and Fuzzy-Based Methods to Evaluate Community Resilience,” Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration, 17 (2): 261–275.
Löfstedt RE and 6 P (2008), “What Environmental and Technological Risk Communication Research and Health Risk Research can Learn from Each Other,” Journal of Risk Research, 11 (1–2): 141–167.
Lupoi A, Cavalieri F and Franchin P (2013), “Seismic Resilience of Regional Health-Care Systems,” Proceedings of the ICOSSAR 2013-11th International Conference on Structural Safety & Reliability.
Marano GC, Greco R and Palombella G (2008), “Stochastic Optimum Design of Linear Tuned Mass Dampers for Seismic Protection of High Towers,” Structural Engineering and Mechanics, 29(6): 603–622.
Miniati R and Iasio C (2012), “Methodology for Rapid Seismic Risk Assessment of Health Structures: Case Study of the Hospital System in Florence, Italy,” International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 2:16–24.
Nakashima M, Lavan O, Kurata M and Luo Y (2014), “Earthquake Engineering Research Needs in Light of Lessons Learned from the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake,” Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration, 13 (1): 141–149.
Poland C (2009), “The Resilient City: Defining What San Francisco Needs from Its Seismic Mitigation Polices,” San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association Report, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Price RN and Harrell CR (1999), “Simulation Modeling and Optimization Using ProModel,” Proceedings of the 1999 Winter Simulation Conference, “Simulation-A Bridge to the Future” (Cat. No. 99CH37038), 1: 208–214.
Tang B, Lu X, Ye L and Shi W (2011), “Evaluation of Collapse Resistance of RC Frame Structures for Chinese Schools in Seismic Design Categories B and C,” Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration, 10 (3): 369.
Tobin T and Samant L (2009), “San Francisco’s Earthquake Risk — Report on Potential Earthquake Impacts in San Francisco,” Proceedings of the The Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS), Internal report.
Wada A, Towhata I, Tamura K and Zhe Q (2018), “A Complete Introduction to the SCJ Proposal and Its Commentary on the Development of Seismically Resilient Cities,” Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration, 17 (4): 677–691.
Wang Z and Lee GC (2009), “A Comparative Study of Bridge Damage due to the Wenchuan, Northridge, Loma Prieta and San Fernando Earthquakes,” Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration, 8 (2): 251–261.
Yi P (2005), “Real-Time Generic Hospital Capacity Estimation under Emergency Situations,” PhD Thesis, State University of New York at Buffalo.
Zhong S, Clark M, Hou X-Y, Zang Y and FitzGerald G (2014), “Validation of a Framework for Measuring Hospital Disaster Resilience Using Factor Analysis,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 11 (6): 6335–6353.
Zhou H, Shi L, Mao Y, Tang J and Zeng Y (2014), “Diffusion of New Technology, Health Services and Information after a Crisis: a Focus Group Study of the Sichuan “5.12” Earthquake,” The International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 29 (2): 115–123.
Acknowledgement
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the Grant Agreement No. ERC_IDEAL RESCUE_637842 of the project IDEAL RESCUE—Integrated Design and Control of Sustainable Communities during Emergencies.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Supported by
European Research Council under Grant No. ERC_IDEAL RESCUE_637842 of the project IDEAL RESCUE—Integrated Design and Control of Sustainable Communities during Emergencies
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cimellaro, G.P., Marasco, S., Noori, A.Z. et al. A first order evaluation of the capacity of a healthcare network under emergency. Earthq. Eng. Eng. Vib. 18, 663–677 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11803-019-0528-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11803-019-0528-3