Impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome on Disaster Preparedness of Emergency Response Hospitals

To further understand whether the response planning has also adjusted to the response plans for SARS or other biological events, we evaluated the disaster response plans from emergency re-sponse hospitals in Taipei to elucidate the impact of SARS on the planning. We reviewed disaster response plans from 52 emergency response hospitals in Taipei in 2004 according to a checklist modified from ASTHO checklist. All the 52 (100%) emergency response hospitals had response plans for SARS, whereas there were merely 2 (4%) that had general response plan for all biological events including bioterrorism (P<0.001). The overall average of these plans is 15+8 points. The least achieved targets include the epidemic plan addresses Worker’s Compensation and Unem-ployment Compensation issues related to health care and other workers missing work because of isolation or quarantine and that the authority has identified deficiencies in laws and procedures on quarantine, isolation and related capacities and initiated steps to have those deficiencies corrected. The average score was significantly higher in 8 tertiary centers than in other hospitals (20+4 vs. 12+9, P<0.01). The only two general plans for all biological events have gained 22 and 21 points, respectively. Our survey demonstrated that most of emergency response hospitals do not take int