The Application of Hospital Safety Index for Analyzing Primary Healthcare Center (PHC) Disaster and Emergency Preparedness

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines the primary healthcare center (PHC) as a whole-of-society approach to health that aims at ensuring the highest possible level of health and well-being and their equitable distribution by focusing on people’s needs as early as possible along the continuum from health promotion and disease prevention to treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care, and as close as feasibly possible to people’s everyday environment. PHCs are expected to remain operational when disasters occur. This study aimed to assess the PHC disaster preparedness level in Indonesia using The Hospital Safety Index (HSI) from WHO/PAHO. Eleven PHCs located in four provinces in Indonesia, i.e., Jakarta, Yogyakarta, North Sumatera, and West Java, were selected. Data were collected through interviews, focus-group discussions (FGDs), observations, and document reviews. The parameters assessed were all types of hazards, structural or construction safety, nonstructural safety, and functional attributes. The results show that the overall score of HSI for PHCs in Jakarta (0.674) and North Sumatera (0.752) fell into the “A” category, meaning that these PHCs would likely remain operational in the case of disasters. Meanwhile, the overall HSI scores for PHCs in West Java (0.601) and Yogyakarta (0.602) were between 0.36 and 0.65, or in “B” category, meaning that these PHCs would be able to recover during disasters but several services would be exposed to danger. The results suggested that there are several gaps that need urgent interventions to be applied for the structural safety of buildings, water supply systems, fuel storage, disaster committee organization, furniture and fittings, offices and storage equipment, as well as increasing the capacity of workers through a structured and systematic training framework for disaster readiness. The results from this study can be used for prioritizing budgets and resource allocation, cost planning, providing specific solutions for local and national government, and efforts to achieve disaster risk reduction.