Hospital disaster preparedness in Japan: Infrastructure maintenance strategy for disasters

<p>Hospital preparedness for disaster is important in the present “mega”-disaster era.</p><p>Purpose: To evaluate the infrastructure preparedness of Japanese hospitals.</p><p>Methods: A disaster preparedness questionnaire was sent to 2537 hospitals including university hospitals and members of the Japan Hospital Association in Japan in 2018, and the completed responses of 495 hospitals were analyzed.</p><p>Results: A tertiary emergency center was present in 105 hospitals. The potential disaster risks included earthquake directly above the center of the building in 283, plate-boundary quake in 230, flood in 205, tsunami in 118, and soil liquefaction in 108. Despite the high probability of future disasters, notification of hospital staff to the potential risk was poor for disasters such as earthquake greater than seismic intensity scale 5 in 14% and risk of flood around the hospital in 11%. Emergency electric generators were checked annually by 50% of hospitals and every two months in 38%. In 65% of hospitals, a water reservoir was located on the rooftop. In the event of an earthquake, damage to the reservoir would risk flooding the hospital below.</p><p>Conclusions: Many of the hospitals that responded had high vulnerability to disasters; however, medical staff were not satisfactorily informed of the risks. The frequency of checking emergency electric generators was adequate. To avert flooding from the top of the hospital building, rooftop water reservoirs should undergo reinforcement or be relocated.</p>