Disaster Risk Management – Health Emergency Network

2019

This is a Finalist in the Government Best Practice Recognition Awards

Title

Disaster Risk Management - Health Emergency Network

Organization

Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital and Sanitarium (DJNRMH)

Best practice Focus Area(s)

Social and environmental responsibility, Convergence, Customer and citizen focus, Process management and improvement, Innovation

Year Implemented

2016

Summary

On July 6, 2016, Dr. Alfonso Victorino Famaran, Medical Center Chief of Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital, spearheaded the mainstreaming of the hospital’s Health Emergency Management Bureau Office into National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management arena through the institutionalization of measures capacitating selected hospital employees in the provision of training aimed at empowering communities to become disaster-resilient.

Existing policies and guidelines on health emergencies were being implemented in the locale, however, Dr. Famaran, with his vision of improving this system and ensuring standards are met, devised means to marry standards with quality.

Background and Problem

The Health Emergency Medical Bureau (HEMB) was institutionalized under Executive Order 102. Section 2c of this mandate states that the DOH shall be the lead agency in health emergency response services. The DOH through its HEMB, extended its arm to capacitate hospitals under its umbrella, and worked its way to the communities through the HEMB Office of each agency.

DJNRMH’s HEMB conducted activities encompassing the prevention of loss of lives during emergencies and disasters in collaboration with stakeholders. The hospital is the only government hospital in the vicinity, patronized by the communities of North Caloocan, Bulacan, and Quezon City.

These communities are prone to mass casualty incidents such as vehicular accidents and criminalities in these areas, resulting in injuries of victims. DNRMH is an end-referral hospital where all cases are accommodated. However, challenges are in the field of response like delay in transporting the patient and provision of first aid.

Solution and Impact

Capacitating hospital staff and stakeholders through a series of emergency response training inculcates commitment between community leaders, government and non-government staff, health team members. Active participation of all concerned with emergency preparedness activities ensures the effectiveness of the institutional-designed contingency plans and protocols.

Health emergency response networking has four thematic areas. First is prevention and mitigation. This involves identification of risk, hazards, and vulnerabilities such as extreme of ages in community and location assessment. Second, the preparedness of the hospital staff, communities, non-government, and government agencies through a series of training on disaster preparedness, logistics, and drills. The response phase is the third step. In this phase, activation of designed contingency plans and activities are executed and evaluated. This will measure the effectiveness and efficiency of the Planning and Preparedness phase. Lastly, Recovery and Rehabilitation phase. This is the activation of post-disaster management such as a business continuity plan and builds back better (BBB). This last phase of disaster risk reduction management is intended to be a dynamic tool for severely affected technology, building, or department. At this point, critical processes, essentials application, recovery time objectives, and resources were listed to ensure continuity of operations. Its ultimate goal is to restore and resume business functions to a normal state after some time following an emergency event. 

Through hard work and resilience, the hospital reached its goal of being an exemplary institution in the field of health emergency preparedness and response. This year, the Department of Health promotes this best practice to national and international audiences such as to Myanmar delegates making it a model of sort for the different emergency-related undertakings of the sector. In a long term perspective, the memorandum of agreement is set forth between interrelated agencies resulting in unceasing compliance to Executive Order No. 102.

Milestones

HEMB is a consistent source of merit for DJNRMH. The team conveyed numerous awards and honors from GAWAD KALASAG.  GAWAD KALASAG is an Excellence Award Giving Body dedicated to encouraging agencies in coming up with the best design and plan in the implementation of Disaster Risk Management (DRM) programs. With the HEMS team’s concerted effort and enduring support of management, it managed to earn the agency two more awards for Best Government Hospital, National Level, from 2013 to 2014. This is a huge achievement for the hospital considering that the HEMS Office only became regionally and nationally active in 2009.