Perspective Chapter: Hospital Disaster Management during Dengue Outbreak

Abstract

The outbreak of dengue results in surge of patient in the hospital. Dengue without warning signs are usually treated on outpatient basis while those with warning signs presents to emergency and are treated as inpatient basis. Severe dengue is treated in intensive care unit. This creates the challenge in managing the surge from outpatient to intensive care unit, often exceeding the capacity to treat. A hospital needs disaster management plan to cope with this surge of the patient. The disaster plan includes, hospital incident command system, networking plan, surge capacity, and emergency system. Beside this, a dynamic protocol needs to be implemented as sensitivity and specificity of the test kit remains same however, the predictive value of screening question increases as more and more population get affected. Therefore, primary or screening triage plays important during the surge of the patient.