Culture of Safety and Preparedness: Benefits of Applying a Daily Mitigation Mindset in the Hospital Setting

• Published in: International journal of environmental research and public health Vol. 21; no. 2; p. 221
• Main Authors: Griffin, Anne Reid, Dobalian, Aram, Langan, Joanne C, Shipman, Sallie J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 13.02.2024
• Subjects: Climate change; Data Accuracy; Disaster Planning; Disasters; Emergency preparedness; Executives; Hospitals; Humans; Infectious diseases; Infrastructure; Nurses; Nursing; Pandemics; Phenomenology; Professional relationships; Researchers; Supply chains; United States > US; natural disasters; nursing; disaster management; disaster nursing; climate; risk evaluation and mitigation
• ISSN: 1660-4601; 1661-7827; 1660-4601
• DOI: 10.3390/ijerph21020221

Utilizing the subjective experience of nurse executives who have supervised nurses during a major disaster in a hospital setting, this study aims to describe the subjective experience of nurse executives (NE) who have supervised nurses' responses to major disasters. This paper will focus on strategies to support nursing response to disasters, specifically to strengthen resiliency and the ability to maintain function despite the shock of a disaster, including those caused by climate change. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 hospital-based nurse executives who supervised nurses during some of the worst natural and human-made disasters in different regions of the United States. A phenomenological approach was used to analyze and describe emerging themes from the qualitative data. Three nurse executives demonstrated theme saturation for mitigation steps to augment traditional disaster readiness activities: (1) Assessment of human infrastructure: daily skills needed during disaster response; (2) Identification and study of failure points and metrics; (3) Strengthening human infrastructure: rectifying deficiencies; and (4) Monitoring metrics and making corrections during conventional periods. Mitigation steps may improve outcomes in hospital function during conventional times; therefore, these steps may improve resiliency and the ability to maintain functions during major disasters, including climate change.