Hospital Decision Making in the Wake of Katrina

The key findings and lessons learned in New Orleans are presented in Chapter 4.  These include: the importance of resilient building systems and back-up power and water, internal self-sufficiency, the importance of networking and relationships, the importance of personnel and staffing, the importance of communicating emergency plans, and effective management and decision-making.  These lessons, while coming from the Hurricane Katrina event, are applicable to emergency planning and decision-making for a variety of disasters and extreme events, not just for hospitals but for other organizations and institutions as well. Any organization that depends on the external environment for essential inputs (e.g. human resources, energy, supplies) and that neglects these lessons risks ruinous failure in the face of all-too-likely disasters.