Disaster Preparedness Training Relevance for Organizational Response Effectiveness: A Healthcare Executive...

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous studies had described gaps in hospital preparedness for natural and man-made disasters and public health emergencies. These gaps were especially evident during the COVID-19 pandemic and recent catastrophes, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and cyberattacks, highlighting the lack of organizational preparedness and response. This study aims to understand the training that healthcare executives should receive in order to prepare for future disasters and health emergencies.

We developed a survey based on existing literature and insights from healthcare executives and disaster medicine experts, all of whom had gained expertise while responding to prior disasters. Our exploratory study also targeted individuals with executive positions in hospitals. Respondents had varying levels of executive responsibility, including C-suite positions, operations directors, clinicians, and those in other strategic analytic roles.

Our survey found that scenario planning, using either a tabletop exercise or active role-playing-a simulation-based training method in which participants assume specific roles to act out realistic or hypothetical disaster scenarios-was found to be the most relevant type of training, while setting up an emergency operations center was the least relevant. Healthcare executives perceive that they are better prepared for disasters when the training they receive is relevant to them. This signifies that believing in oneself as being prepared leads healthcare executives to perceive that their organizations can implement more comprehensive emergency response activities, and that those activities are deemed to be more effective.

Assessing how healthcare executives perceive their personal preparedness for public health emergencies, such as pandemics and natural disasters, is crucial for enhancing leadership and overall organizational effectiveness in future crises. Organizations and leaders need to be proactive to ensure they effectively respond to increasingly unpredictable crises.