From the American Meteorological Society
A risk management framework improves health systems’ resilience to high-impact weather
WASHINGTON — April 29, 2014 – According to a new study by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Policy Program, a risk management framework can improve the resilience of healthcare facilities and services to high-impact weather such as tornadoes and hurricanes. The report is based on a recent AMS Policy Program workshop, A Prescription for the 21st Century: Improving Resilience to High-Impact Weather for Healthcare Facilities and Services, held in Washington, DC in October 2013.
The purpose of the study was to explore methods for improving the resilience of the health system. The report outlines a process for reducing the structural and operational risks that healthcare facilities often face. The study presents a systematic strategy for improving resilience through a three-step process that first seeks to understand risks, then addresses the vulnerabilities of health facilities, and finally prepares for the continuity of health services in the event of disruptions.
The AMS Policy Program workshop included many diverse and engaged parties. The insurance sector and healthcare accreditors represented the stakeholders who assess risk. Those who plan and construct hospitals were represented by land developers, building engineers, and urban designers. Discussions on the continuity of healthcare services addressed pharmaceutical supplies, health IT, and clinical services.
“Two of our key findings involve new concepts,” Shalini Mohleji, Policy Fellow at the AMS Policy Program and director of the study, said. “First, resilience can be increased through successful risk management, and second, redundant systems promote efficacy, not inefficiency.”
Healthcare facilities and services provide a key foundation for a thriving community. Therefore, ensuring their resilience to high-impact weather is critical. High-impact weather events present a challenge in that they disrupt health facilities and services and decrease the ability to provide healthcare at a time when a community’s needs increase due to injuries and illness associated with the event. As more communities will emerge in areas vulnerable to high-impact weather, the need will grow for resilient healthcare facilities and services.
“Our health facilities are too vulnerable to weather and climate events. We need to protect them more effectively and a comprehensive framework to assess and manage risk can help do that.” said Paul Higgins, Director of the AMS Policy Program.
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The full report is available at the AMS Policy Program website at http://www.ametsoc.org/hfs.
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george e. conant says:
April 29, 2014 at 3:45 pm
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Scroll down a little and check out the “impact” for Los Angeles (don’t bother reading any more than your have too, it’ll make your brain bleed). It is really bad in a worse than we thought kind of way… well I’ll just let you see it for yourself. And don’t miss (like how could you) the irony of the adjacent picture of the San Gabriel reservoir.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/04/el_nino_2014_2015_what_the_weather_pattern_means_for_60_plus_places.html
@Will Nelson, Sir, The unadjusted data sets and historical records for western north America show cycles of drought and non drought conditions. The South West quadrant of USA lower 48 includes arid and semi arid regions, Southern California I understand is classified as desert. Thus the real issue is locating millions upon millions of people in thirsty cities in a region that is , well, dry. The 1950’s saw droughts, the 1960’s saw droughts, and the weather pattern of dry west and friggin freezing cold east and Midwest is historically repeated. I have been to L.A. and when seeing the vista from a jet liner I was astonished at the sheer size of the megalopolis there, they build out in to fragile expanses of desert , everyday, why? Because it doesn’t rain in So Cal. I am may not be a scientist, you could even call me a tree hugger, be that as it may, I am interested in TRUTH and sadly my own research finds TRUTH lacking when it comes to AGW Climate Change Science. WUWT is just one of several brilliant skeptic web sites exposing untruth and I for one am grateful the level of scrutiny shining on the CAGW sham/scam/alarmist agenda …..
Don Gleason says:
April 29, 2014 at 2:31 pm
“Not to worry…Obamacare will wipe ‘em out anyway”
It is not merely Obamacare and not merely hospitals; it is a governing class of ungoverned hypocrisy dirtying all of mankind. They preach generosity while all they do is based on greed, and ask others to love while all they do displays thinly-veiled antipathy towards the common man.
If one was to do an honest feasibility study of the ideas deemed “progressive” by the governing class, I am fairly certain one would ascertain the ideas have never worked, don’t work, and will never work. In essence we are witnessing a time when lunatics are attempting to rule the world and make it an asylum.
I’d be tempted to agree with Neil and say we are living midst a nightmare, but a single candle can defeat a room full of darkness, and a thousand points of light can do a thousand times more.
The costs of environmental hysteria are going to be large and in so many diverse areas we don’t usually think about. We know about useless Thames gates and other costly results of climate puffery, but engineering associations are now talking about codes for major construction projects to take CAGW into consideration. Oh well, I guess there might be some utility for a bridge to last several centuries.
Climate is not weather, and “climate event” is just a circular made up definition to help market climate hysteria.
It would be a good move to park school buses on high ground… and use them. Wait, was that in the report or?
Climate Event = 350.ORG protest where the 100 protesters get paper cuts and mussel strains from carrying those empty boxes of nonexistent e-mails and flood the ER
“The AMS Policy Program workshop included many diverse and engaged parties. The insurance sector and healthcare accreditors represented the stakeholders who assess risk.”
The insurance sector is lining itself with the expectation of significant increases in revenue from carbon fees on insurance policies and then not paying out because “weather events are acts of God”!
So a hospital built today will last – say 40 to 50 years. What exactly do they think is going to happen in that time? Any money spent on protecting new buildings from weather conditions that do not currently exist is a total waste of money.
Of course if you are a politician and you decided to nickel and dime your projects by not building to meet current meteorological conditions then you probably are glad of the excuse of climate change when something bad happens!