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Financial Burden of Emergency Preparedness on an Urban, Academic Hospital

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Bruno Petinaux
Bruno Petinaux*
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency Medicine, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
*
Department of Emergency Medicine, George Washington University, 2150 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Floor 2B, Burns Building, Washington, DC 20037 USA, E-mail: bpetinaux@mfa.gwu.edu
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Abstract

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This study assessed the direct human resource costs of a hospital's emergency preparedness planning (in 2005) by surveying participants retrospectively. Forty participants (74% of the identified population) were surveyed. Using the self-reported hourly salary of the participant, a direct salary cost was calculated for each participant. The population was 40% male and 60% female; 65% had a graduate degree or higher; 65% were administrators; 35% were clinicians; and 50% reported that their job description included a reference to emergency planning activities. All participants spent a combined total of 3,654.25 hours on emergency preparedness activities, including 20.1% on personal education/train-ing; 11.6% on educating other people; 39.3% on paperwork or equipment maintenance; 22.2% on attendance at meetings; 5.6% on drill participation; and <1% on other activities. Considering the participants' hourly salary, direct personal costs spent on emergency preparedness activities at the institution totaled US$232,417. Ten percent, all of whom were physicians, reported no compen-sation for their emergency preparedness efforts at the hospital level.

As much as these results illustrate the strong commitment of the institu-tion to its community, they represent a heavy burden in light of the oftenunfunded mandate of emergency preparedness planning that a hospital may incur. Such responsibility is carried to some extent by all hospitals.

Keywords

costEmergency Management Committeeemergency preparednessfinancial burdenhospitalsalary
Type
Original Research
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 24 , Issue 5 , October 2009 , pp. 372 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2009

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