Nurses- are we disaster ready?

A 2011 study (Hammad et al. 2011 ; Ranse, et al.; Rokkas et al. 2014) demonstrated that in hospital Australian education courses for nurses on disaster preparedness are inconsistent in their content and lack the practical application of disaster response skills (Ranse et al. 2013). With our increasing risks for disaster it is imperative that Australian hospitals ensure that their workforce is adequately prepared to respond to disaster situations, understand their 'new' role in hospital operations should a disaster occur, and constantly review hospital policies and procedures to ensure internal processes and systems are in place and functional