Implementation of best practices for emergency response and recovery at a large hospital: A fire emergency case study

This paper illustrates a study conducted into the managerial practices implemented to mitigate the consequences of a major fire emergency and to promptly restore normal business operations at a large pediatric hospital. Stemming from prior research on crisis response and recovery in critical infrastructures, this investigation demonstrates that factors such as the complexity of the underlying stakeholder networks, the vulnerability of the involved actors, and several temporal and spatial constraints, all contribute in hampering the intervention of crisis managers. In these situations, relying on consolidated best practices may enable more rapid response and more adequate recovery. This study adopts a qualitative approach to build a retrospective case study that highlights the crucial issues that healthcare crisis managers are requested to face when exposed to thorny work conditions: presence of numerous actors from the public and the private sector, involvement of organizations with contrasting interests, need for a balance among public health, cost containment and legitimacy, etc. The findings of the present investigation expand the theoretical knowledge on the dynamics that characterize crises occurring at critical infrastructures and provide practical recommendations for healthcare emergency managers to improve their response to, and recovery from, major fire emergencies