Disaster management in clinical laboratories and blood banks

Abstract

The challenge of disaster management in healthcare facilities is dealing with the incident’s consequences and maintaining regular operations. Diagnostic and clinical microbiology laboratories have a critical role in the early diagnosis of causative agents of infectious diseases that could spread rapidly in the community and lead to outbreaks. Blood banks are also crucial to maintain the blood supply chain and to cope with the raised demand for blood components because of disaster-related injuries. It is thus necessary to prepare emergency plans, including step-by-step action plans for various disaster scenarios. Even though inconvenient conditions exist during disasters, biosafety and biosecurity precautions still apply, as well as quality control requirements in diagnostic and clinical laboratories and blood banks.