Disaster Preparedness for Clinics - Further Study from Haiti

Area of Science:

• Disaster preparedness and response in healthcare settings.
• Public health emergency management in resource-limited environments.
• Healthcare system resilience during crises.

Background:

• Local clinics in LMICs are critical first points of contact during disasters but often lack adequate resources and preparedness.
• Effective disaster response in these settings requires structured frameworks like the Incident Command System (ICS).
• Previous efforts established a disaster manual for training, necessitating follow-up evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the retention and performance of clinic staff in LMICs after disaster response training.
• To assess the effectiveness of a disaster manual and the Incident Command System (ICS) in a simulated disaster scenario.
• To measure improvements in disaster response capabilities following repeat training.

Main Methods:

• A follow-up study was conducted in two clinics in Haiti previously trained using a disaster manual.
• Clinic staff participated in a disaster simulation drill, assessed using the ICS framework.
• Performance was evaluated based on a 13-metric scale measuring mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery.

Main Results:

• Both clinics demonstrated high effectiveness (92%; 36/39) in setting up and operating within the ICS during the mock disaster.
• Staff performance was evaluated on a three-point scale across 13 key disaster response metrics.
• The evaluation indicated strong retention of prior training and improved performance after repeat intervention.

Conclusions:

• Clinics demonstrated significant retention of disaster response training and showed improvement after repeated training.
• The disaster manual and ICS framework are effective tools for enhancing clinic preparedness in LMICs.
• Future research should focus on integrating local clinic disaster response with national health resources for comprehensive patient care.