How Does the Effect of Hurricane Katrina Influence Healthcare Infrastructure and Resilience?

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina brought upon the city of New Orleans, LA one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history. This paper looks at how hospitals were prepared before Katrina, responded to, and grappled with the aftermath of this natural disaster. In the aftermath of Katrina, careful investigation of the healthcare system along with its hospitals, physicians, patients, and residents allow us to take innovative measures and provide guidance to create recommendations to better monitor and care for individuals in the future. Frameworks of resilience theories, studies, and recommendations display how and why disaster planning is essential. The lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina reveal how healthcare infrastructure has changed through numerous interventions in an aim to create a better healthcare system that improves healthcare coverage and emergency preparedness to withstand future disasters, thus creating a better and more resilient healthcare system