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Original Articles

Seismic resilience of a hospital system

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Pages 127-144 | Received 25 Oct 2007, Accepted 03 Dec 2008, Published online: 23 Jul 2009
 

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive model to quantify disaster resilience of systems that is defined as the capability to sustain functionality and recover from losses generated by extreme events. The model combines loss estimation and recovery models and can be applied to critical facilities (e.g. hospitals, military buildings, etc.), as well as utility lifelines (e.g. electric power systems, transportation networks, water systems etc.) that are crucial to the response of recovery processes, decisions and policies. Current research trend leads toward the definition of complex recovery models that are able to describe the process over time and the spatial definition of recovery (e.g. meta-models for the case of health care facilities). The model has been applied to a network of hospitals in Memphis, Tennessee. The resilience framework can be used as a decision support tool to increase the resilience index of systems, such as health care facilities, and reduce disaster vulnerability and consequences.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by the Earthquake Engineering Research Centers Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Award Number EEC-9701471 to MCEER and by the State of New York (NYS). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors.

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