R. M. N. U. Rajapaksha, A. Balasuriya, C. Abeysena, M. S. D. Wijesinghe, Suranga Manilgama, Tom Thomas, Y. Assefa
The foremost concern of disaster management is to minimize human suffering, where the health sector has to play a critical role. Doctors play a major role by getting directly involved as the decision-makers and first responders in patient management. The study aimed to assess the individual level capacity of the doctors for the management of mass casualty incidents following disasters in the major curative healthcare provider in Sri Lanka. An institution-based descriptive cross-sectional survey was carried out among all doctors who were permanently attached to the institution, using a self-administered, pre-tested, validated questionnaire from March 2016 to January 2017. Response rate was 89.9% (n=346). Among them, 28.9 % (n=100), 27.5% (n=95), 38.2% (n=132), 25.7% (n=89), 6.9% (n=24) had good knowledge, attitudes, experience, formal training, and participated in simulations, respectively. Further, 46.8% (n=162) had the desired goal for the management of mass casualty incidents. Those at first respondent units were more likely to have good knowledge than those at other units (p<0.05). Those who had desired goals were significantly more likely to have good knowledge, good attitudes, and prior training in the management of mass casualty incidents (p<0.001). There is a clear need for improvement in the capacity by conducting awareness programs.
{"title":"Management of Mass Casualty Incidents Following Disasters: Individual Level Capacity of the Doctors in a Curative Healthcare Institution, Sri Lanka","authors":"R. M. N. U. Rajapaksha, A. Balasuriya, C. Abeysena, M. S. D. Wijesinghe, Suranga Manilgama, Tom Thomas, Y. Assefa","doi":"10.51595/injhsr22/016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51595/injhsr22/016","url":null,"abstract":"The foremost concern of disaster management is to minimize human suffering, where the health sector has to play a critical role. Doctors play a major role by getting directly involved as the decision-makers and first responders in patient management. The study aimed to assess the individual level capacity of the doctors for the management of mass casualty incidents following disasters in the major curative healthcare provider in Sri Lanka. An institution-based descriptive cross-sectional survey was carried out among all doctors who were permanently attached to the institution, using a self-administered, pre-tested, validated questionnaire from March 2016 to January 2017. Response rate was 89.9% (n=346). Among them, 28.9 % (n=100), 27.5% (n=95), 38.2% (n=132), 25.7% (n=89), 6.9% (n=24) had good knowledge, attitudes, experience, formal training, and participated in simulations, respectively. Further, 46.8% (n=162) had the desired goal for the management of mass casualty incidents. Those at first respondent units were more likely to have good knowledge than those at other units (p<0.05). Those who had desired goals were significantly more likely to have good knowledge, good attitudes, and prior training in the management of mass casualty incidents (p<0.001). There is a clear need for improvement in the capacity by conducting awareness programs.","PeriodicalId":141517,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Health Systems Resilience","volume":"49 14","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120967860","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
n this letter to the editor based on the ideas expressed at the launch of the International Journal of Health Systems Resilience, Dr. Byran Walker examines the relationship between the health resilience and the population explosion from a historical point of view.
{"title":"An Introduction to Health Resilience and the Population Explosion","authors":"Bryan Walker","doi":"10.51595/injhsr22/014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51595/injhsr22/014","url":null,"abstract":"n this letter to the editor based on the ideas expressed at the launch of the International Journal of Health Systems Resilience, Dr. Byran Walker examines the relationship between the health resilience and the population explosion from a historical point of view.","PeriodicalId":141517,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Health Systems Resilience","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129955863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
G. Fernando, KM Somarathne, Kjmd Tharanga, Ppap Pathirana, Aas Senevirathna
Medical Error is defined as deviations from the identified process of care, which may or may not cause harm to the patient. Medical errors denote a serious public health problem and exert a threat to patient safety. Main causal factors of medical administration errors are medication name confusion and improper container labeling. As such, project has aimed to develop a standard medication trolley for the hospital to prevent drug and medication administration errors, thereby ensuring patient safety.
{"title":"Standardization of Medication Trolley to Ensure Medication Safety of Inward Patients: A Case Study from the Base Hospital Udugama","authors":"G. Fernando, KM Somarathne, Kjmd Tharanga, Ppap Pathirana, Aas Senevirathna","doi":"10.51595/injhsr22/015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51595/injhsr22/015","url":null,"abstract":"Medical Error is defined as deviations from the identified process of care, which may or may not cause harm to the patient. Medical errors denote a serious public health problem and exert a threat to patient safety. Main causal factors of medical administration errors are medication name confusion and improper container labeling. As such, project has aimed to develop a standard medication trolley for the hospital to prevent drug and medication administration errors, thereby ensuring patient safety.","PeriodicalId":141517,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Health Systems Resilience","volume":"81 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131163348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Health systems, small or large, are essential to ensure the well-being of communities. However, health systems worldwide are struggling with their challenges in delivering services to communities. On top of that, when disasters, conflicts, crises, and pandemics occur, the communities will depend more on the health systems. If the health systems are functional despite the adversities, they can reduce deaths, injuries, diseases, and human suffering in the aftermath of such events. However, such adversities do not spare health systems. On the contrary, they will pose an additional burden for emergency health systems, calling for augmentation of surge capacity. All building blocks of health systems could be affected by shocks and stressors; the COVID-19 pandemic has been the perfect and the most recent example. The lessons learned by health systems, irrespective of their size, complexity, and geographic distribution during the pandemic, call for better understanding and operationalizing of health systems resilience, at all levels, from the global, national, sub-national, and institutional levels. Resilient health systems have some common positive characteristics: they can prepare, respond and recover from shocks and stressors, capitalizing on resources within; they can cope; they can bounce back. However, more academic and practice-based research is needed to expand our understanding of health systems resilience and ways and means of enhancing it. We must learn to look at health systems through a lens of resilience, going beyond the traditional health emergency preparedness and response activities, which are often fragmented and compartmentalized. Each disaster, conflict, crisis, and pandemic can teach us many great lessons on making our health systems more resilient. However, organizational learning will happen only if the health systems are humble, open, and ready to learn, not only from successes but also from failures. The International Journal of Health Systems Resilience (INJHSR) creates a platform for our resilience practitioners to learn from each other. INJHSR promotes sharing of experiences, lessons learned, and best practices on health systems resilience. In addition, INJHSR fosters innovation in the field of health systems resilience. At INJHSR, we celebrate innovations that were successful and scaled up and those that did not do so well because such honest learnings are critical in addressing future challenges. Further, INJHSR will provide opportunities for resilience practitioners to collaborate on promoting health systems resilience. International Journal of Health Systems Resilience is our journal. It is our platform to make our health systems resilient.
{"title":"Birth of an International Journal Dedicated to Health Systems Resilience","authors":"Novil Wijesekara","doi":"10.51595/injhsr22/013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51595/injhsr22/013","url":null,"abstract":"Health systems, small or large, are essential to ensure the well-being of communities. However, health systems worldwide are struggling with their challenges in delivering services to communities. On top of that, when disasters, conflicts, crises, and pandemics occur, the communities will depend more on the health systems. If the health systems are functional despite the adversities, they can reduce deaths, injuries, diseases, and human suffering in the aftermath of such events. However, such adversities do not spare health systems. On the contrary, they will pose an additional burden for emergency health systems, calling for augmentation of surge capacity. All building blocks of health systems could be affected by shocks and stressors; the COVID-19 pandemic has been the perfect and the most recent example. The lessons learned by health systems, irrespective of their size, complexity, and geographic distribution during the pandemic, call for better understanding and operationalizing of health systems resilience, at all levels, from the global, national, sub-national, and institutional levels. Resilient health systems have some common positive characteristics: they can prepare, respond and recover from shocks and stressors, capitalizing on resources within; they can cope; they can bounce back. However, more academic and practice-based research is needed to expand our understanding of health systems resilience and ways and means of enhancing it. We must learn to look at health systems through a lens of resilience, going beyond the traditional health emergency preparedness and response activities, which are often fragmented and compartmentalized. Each disaster, conflict, crisis, and pandemic can teach us many great lessons on making our health systems more resilient. However, organizational learning will happen only if the health systems are humble, open, and ready to learn, not only from successes but also from failures. The International Journal of Health Systems Resilience (INJHSR) creates a platform for our resilience practitioners to learn from each other. INJHSR promotes sharing of experiences, lessons learned, and best practices on health systems resilience. In addition, INJHSR fosters innovation in the field of health systems resilience. At INJHSR, we celebrate innovations that were successful and scaled up and those that did not do so well because such honest learnings are critical in addressing future challenges. Further, INJHSR will provide opportunities for resilience practitioners to collaborate on promoting health systems resilience. International Journal of Health Systems Resilience is our journal. It is our platform to make our health systems resilient.","PeriodicalId":141517,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Health Systems Resilience","volume":"86 2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115057662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Adverse events such as medical errors, injuries, or equipment failures which could harm patients, caregivers, or other individuals or has the potential to harm them are known as medical incidents. Avoidance of unintended or unexpected harm to people during the provision of healthcare is mandatory. In healthcare settings incident reporting refers to collecting healthcare incident data with the aim of enhancing patient safety and quality of care. This review aims to discuss the practice, usefulness and drawbacks of Incident Reporting System (IRS) in healthcare systems. The history of adverse events assessment in hospital setup runs back till 1980s. Since then, many developed countries have put emphasis on the establishment of IRSs in their health systems. In 2005, the World Health Organization issued a guideline to be followed on the establishment of incident reporting systems in healthcare organizations. Benefits of incident reporting in healthcare systems include prevention of reoccurrences of adverse events, provision an updated knowledge and understanding about risk events, create lessons and promote safety-minded culture. It saves a considerable sum of money of the healthcare budget in the long run. Under-reporting is the main challenge in incident reporting. It is recommended to implement comprehensive IRSs in health services in all developing countries in order to drive good medical practice and to ensure the safety and quality of patient care.
{"title":"Are Incident Reporting Systems in Healthcare Systems a Requirement for Improving Patient Safety? A Review","authors":"G. Fernando, Thushari Bandara, M. Purva","doi":"10.51595/injhsr22/019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51595/injhsr22/019","url":null,"abstract":"Adverse events such as medical errors, injuries, or equipment failures which could harm patients, caregivers, or other individuals or has the potential to harm them are known as medical incidents. Avoidance of unintended or unexpected harm to people during the provision of healthcare is mandatory. In healthcare settings incident reporting refers to collecting healthcare incident data with the aim of enhancing patient safety and quality of care. This review aims to discuss the practice, usefulness and drawbacks of Incident Reporting System (IRS) in healthcare systems. The history of adverse events assessment in hospital setup runs back till 1980s. Since then, many developed countries have put emphasis on the establishment of IRSs in their health systems. In 2005, the World Health Organization issued a guideline to be followed on the establishment of incident reporting systems in healthcare organizations. Benefits of incident reporting in healthcare systems include prevention of reoccurrences of adverse events, provision an updated knowledge and understanding about risk events, create lessons and promote safety-minded culture. It saves a considerable sum of money of the healthcare budget in the long run. Under-reporting is the main challenge in incident reporting. It is recommended to implement comprehensive IRSs in health services in all developing countries in order to drive good medical practice and to ensure the safety and quality of patient care.","PeriodicalId":141517,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Health Systems Resilience","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116022912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Digitalization of health system is defined as adaption of digital technology in health care service to offer high quality patient care. WHO has directed to implement digital system to health care service in order to achieve sustainable development goals. However, digitalization of health care system is lagging behind compared to other business environment due to poor leadership skills of the health care leaders. The objective of this review is to identify the roles and attributes of the health care leaders in order to perform in digital world. Best 30 articles were referred from the 80 articles related to digitalization of health care and leadership to write this review. Leaders need to come out of their comfort zone and understand the rapidly changing business field with the digitalization. Healthcare leaders are advised to go beyond their traditional leadership style and develop new leadership skills. The transformational leadership theory was identified as the starting point for ‘new-genre leadership’ models emphasizing that a leader’s style should be visionary, ideological, and participative, servant, or authentic where digital leader needs to perform. Leader-member exchange theory focuses on the nature and quality of the relationship between leaders and their team members which is the ideal for implementation of the digital health. Therefore, digital leader need to be flexible and adaptable to new ideas, intellectual curiosity, having transformative vision, forward-looking perspective, change-oriented, open minded, adaptable, innovative and a hunger for new knowledge. They need to be maintained a more egalitarian and results-oriented approach unlike previous traditional leaders. In addition, healthcare leaders need to developed better skills to manage finances, understanding of project management timeline and alternative options before digitalization of the health system. Digital leaders need to developed attributes such as the ability to influence, inspiring a shared vision, being proactive, and ability to avoid blaming others, being visionary and being innovative. They need to develop their analytics capability of the health care leaders are essential to ensure effective professional leadership. Delegation of work and effective communication are very important attributes a leader should perform when dealing with the digital health. To effective digitalization of health system to improve patient care service health care, leaders need to develop new leadership skills.
{"title":"Role of Healthcare Leaders in the Digitalization of Health System: A Review","authors":"G. Fernando, M. Purva","doi":"10.51595/injhsr22/018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51595/injhsr22/018","url":null,"abstract":"Digitalization of health system is defined as adaption of digital technology in health care service to offer high quality patient care. WHO has directed to implement digital system to health care service in order to achieve sustainable development goals. However, digitalization of health care system is lagging behind compared to other business environment due to poor leadership skills of the health care leaders. The objective of this review is to identify the roles and attributes of the health care leaders in order to perform in digital world. Best 30 articles were referred from the 80 articles related to digitalization of health care and leadership to write this review. Leaders need to come out of their comfort zone and understand the rapidly changing business field with the digitalization. Healthcare leaders are advised to go beyond their traditional leadership style and develop new leadership skills. The transformational leadership theory was identified as the starting point for ‘new-genre leadership’ models emphasizing that a leader’s style should be visionary, ideological, and participative, servant, or authentic where digital leader needs to perform. Leader-member exchange theory focuses on the nature and quality of the relationship between leaders and their team members which is the ideal for implementation of the digital health. Therefore, digital leader need to be flexible and adaptable to new ideas, intellectual curiosity, having transformative vision, forward-looking perspective, change-oriented, open minded, adaptable, innovative and a hunger for new knowledge. They need to be maintained a more egalitarian and results-oriented approach unlike previous traditional leaders. In addition, healthcare leaders need to developed better skills to manage finances, understanding of project management timeline and alternative options before digitalization of the health system. Digital leaders need to developed attributes such as the ability to influence, inspiring a shared vision, being proactive, and ability to avoid blaming others, being visionary and being innovative. They need to develop their analytics capability of the health care leaders are essential to ensure effective professional leadership. Delegation of work and effective communication are very important attributes a leader should perform when dealing with the digital health. To effective digitalization of health system to improve patient care service health care, leaders need to develop new leadership skills.","PeriodicalId":141517,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Health Systems Resilience","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132797653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pharmaceutical and Medical Device shortages in Sri Lanka’s Economic crisis: could Building Back Better post Covid-19 affected this Outcome?","authors":"Dominic Johnpillai","doi":"10.51595/injhsr22/004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51595/injhsr22/004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":141517,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Health Systems Resilience","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123677732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The pressure of disease eradication can be enormous. Pakistan and Afghanistan are 2 endemic countries that are expected to give the final push to Wild Polio Virus out of planet. Polio Eradication is the largest program the world has known and has the largest frontline workforce that knocks at every door in the country. Pakistan had 15 months period where no human paralytic case of wild polio virus was reported, the program was thought to be headed in the right direction when suddenly, the outbreak happened in northwest part of Pakistan with multiple paralytic cases clustered in time and space. It was only after the detection of these cases that program’s telescope turned to this part of Pakistan that had longstanding issues which were not unknown. The outbreak has now spread to other parts of Pakistan. In this article, the author narrates her experience from the field that highlight the issues with roots that penetrate deep in the systems and hamper not only the progress of Polio Eradication but also, why overall health investments do not reach masses adequately. The author also presents the solution(s) that need to be implemented by overturning “one size fits all approach”. This entails local policy making through firsthand community interaction instead of policies made in fancy offices far away from these communities.
{"title":"Pakistan: Walking the Last Mile for Eradicating Polio – We are Stumbling","authors":"N. Ali","doi":"10.51595/injhsr22/010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51595/injhsr22/010","url":null,"abstract":"The pressure of disease eradication can be enormous. Pakistan and Afghanistan are 2 endemic countries that are expected to give the final push to Wild Polio Virus out of planet. Polio Eradication is the largest program the world has known and has the largest frontline workforce that knocks at every door in the country. Pakistan had 15 months period where no human paralytic case of wild polio virus was reported, the program was thought to be headed in the right direction when suddenly, the outbreak happened in northwest part of Pakistan with multiple paralytic cases clustered in time and space. It was only after the detection of these cases that program’s telescope turned to this part of Pakistan that had longstanding issues which were not unknown. The outbreak has now spread to other parts of Pakistan. In this article, the author narrates her experience from the field that highlight the issues with roots that penetrate deep in the systems and hamper not only the progress of Polio Eradication but also, why overall health investments do not reach masses adequately. The author also presents the solution(s) that need to be implemented by overturning “one size fits all approach”. This entails local policy making through firsthand community interaction instead of policies made in fancy offices far away from these communities.","PeriodicalId":141517,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Health Systems Resilience","volume":"144 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125774946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sri Lanka is at its 3rd phase of COVID-19 pandemic. Sri Lanka has a very efficient public health system. Though very comprehensive, the present disease surveillance system lacked real time epidemiological information. The computer and mobile applications were developed to provide illustrative, epidemiological information for real-time disease surveillance as opposed to the existing paper-based system, to be relevant in a world interconnected via the internet and geographical information systems. The new system well supplemented the existing disease system while providing detailed information for prompt COVID-19 control and prevention
{"title":"WP-COVID, a Web Based Computer and Mobile Application for COVID-19 Disease Surveillance","authors":"Laksitha Iroshan Ranasinghe","doi":"10.51595/injhsr22/012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51595/injhsr22/012","url":null,"abstract":"Sri Lanka is at its 3rd phase of COVID-19 pandemic. Sri Lanka has a very efficient public health system. Though very comprehensive, the present disease surveillance system lacked real time epidemiological information. The computer and mobile applications were developed to provide illustrative, epidemiological information for real-time disease surveillance as opposed to the existing paper-based system, to be relevant in a world interconnected via the internet and geographical information systems. The new system well supplemented the existing disease system while providing detailed information for prompt COVID-19 control and prevention","PeriodicalId":141517,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Health Systems Resilience","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124097083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
COVID-19 is a contagious respiratory illness caused by SARS-CoV-2. As such, it is challenging to maintain the safety of healthcare workers while delivering care to patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. The health sector has thus implemented various strategies to enhance hospital preparedness and ensure safety. The aim of this study is then to assess the hospital’s preparedness for COVID-19 at a base hospital in Galle District, to ensure safety. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among medical officers and nursing officers in Galle district. A self-administered questionnaire and an observational checklist were used to collect data. Response rate was 90.52%. Majority were female 88.8% (n=221). Majority of the participants were between 30-39 years of age (n=144 %). Study sample consisted of 62 (24%) medical officers and 196 (76%) nursing officers and the majority (n=152, 58.9%) had more than 10 years of work experience. Furthermore, the majority 81.4% (n=210) were aware of updates about guidelines and circulars regarding COVID-19 issued by the Ministry of Health. Frequent hand washing was practiced by 96.9% (n=250) while social distancing was not practiced by a considerable number of participants (n=77, 29.8%). 90.7% (n=234) participants were not exposed to training on outbreak management. A considerable proportion was not confident about the correct practice of donning and doffing (n=60, 23.2%). The absence of a dedicated respiratory ward and a separate venue at emergency treatment unit to manage patients with respiratory symptoms were noted. There were deficiencies of adherence to social distancing, training, self-confidence and physical arrangement of hospital. Ergo, it is noted that implementing training programs on outbreak response and building trust between the institution and staff on safety will improve the preparedness in future outbreaks.
{"title":"Hospital preparedness for COVID-19 at a base level hospital in Galle District, Sri Lanka","authors":"N.H. Welikumbura, P. Ranasinghe, Nithin Ranawaka","doi":"10.51595/injhsr22/007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51595/injhsr22/007","url":null,"abstract":"COVID-19 is a contagious respiratory illness caused by SARS-CoV-2. As such, it is challenging to maintain the safety of healthcare workers while delivering care to patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. The health sector has thus implemented various strategies to enhance hospital preparedness and ensure safety. The aim of this study is then to assess the hospital’s preparedness for COVID-19 at a base hospital in Galle District, to ensure safety. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among medical officers and nursing officers in Galle district. A self-administered questionnaire and an observational checklist were used to collect data. Response rate was 90.52%. Majority were female 88.8% (n=221). Majority of the participants were between 30-39 years of age (n=144 %). Study sample consisted of 62 (24%) medical officers and 196 (76%) nursing officers and the majority (n=152, 58.9%) had more than 10 years of work experience. Furthermore, the majority 81.4% (n=210) were aware of updates about guidelines and circulars regarding COVID-19 issued by the Ministry of Health. Frequent hand washing was practiced by 96.9% (n=250) while social distancing was not practiced by a considerable number of participants (n=77, 29.8%). 90.7% (n=234) participants were not exposed to training on outbreak management. A considerable proportion was not confident about the correct practice of donning and doffing (n=60, 23.2%). The absence of a dedicated respiratory ward and a separate venue at emergency treatment unit to manage patients with respiratory symptoms were noted. There were deficiencies of adherence to social distancing, training, self-confidence and physical arrangement of hospital. Ergo, it is noted that implementing training programs on outbreak response and building trust between the institution and staff on safety will improve the preparedness in future outbreaks.","PeriodicalId":141517,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Health Systems Resilience","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116907746","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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