Impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome on Disaster Preparedness of Emergency Response Hospitals

Tzong-Luen Wang, MD, PhD; Kuo-Chih Chen, MD; I-Yin Lin, MD; Chien-Chih Chen, MD; Huei-Tsair Chen, MD; Kuan-Che Lu, MD

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Abstract -- To further understand whether the response planning has also adjusted to the response plans for SARS or other biological events, we evaluated the disaster response plans from emergency response hospitals in Taipei to elucidate the impact of SARS on the planning. We reviewed disaster response plans from 52 emergency response hospitals in Taipei in 2004 according to a checklist modified from ASTHO checklist. All the 52 (100%) emergency response hospitals had response plans for SARS, whereas there were merely 2 (4%) that had general response plan for all biological events including bioterrorism (P<0.001). The overall average of these plans is 15+8 points. The least achieved targets include the epidemic plan addresses Worker's Compensation and Unemployment Compensation issues related to health care and other workers missing work because of isolation or quarantine and that the authority has identified deficiencies in laws and procedures on quarantine, isolation and related capacities and initiated steps to have those deficiencies corrected. The average score was significantly higher in 8 tertiary centers than in other hospitals (20+4 vs. 12+9, P<0.01). The only two general plans for all biological events have gained 22 and 21 points, respectively. Our survey demonstrated that most of emergency response hospitals do not take into consideration the financial and legislative problems in their SARS response plans although all of them do have such plans. This observation may imply that most of the disaster response plans in Taiwan still emphasize crisis management instead of consequence management.