Dr Huey Wen Lim, a researcher at Department of Construction Management in Tsinghua University, discusses her research paper co-written with Dr Zaishang Li and Professor Dongping Fang, and published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, titled "Impact of management, leadership, and group integration on the hospital response readiness for earthquakes".

Abstract:
Hospitals play a crucial role in providing emergency medical care to the local community immediately after an earthquake. While the impact of an earthquake may damage critical systems and medical facilities, the effective response of hospitals depends heavily on the capability of the medical personnel to continue delivering medical services to an increasing number of casualties. Previous studies have emphasized the need to improve hospital preparedness, but it does not explain how hospital preparedness predicts the response readiness of the medical personnel for disaster emergencies. The roles of leadership and group integration on influencing the response readiness have often been overlooked. Hence, to improve the disaster response effectiveness, this study aims to explore the impact of disaster management preparedness, leadership, and group integration on the response readiness for an earthquake. Questionnaires were developed and validated through expert interviews, in which a total of 121 valid survey responses were received from four hospitals in Mianzhu City, Sichuan Province, China. The hierarchical component modeling was performed and achieved a model fit on the measurement and structural models. Results revealed that disaster management preparedness has a significantly positive impact on response readiness. Leadership also affected group integration, which significantly mediated the relationship between management preparedness and response readiness. This study addressed the knowledge gap on the mechanism that affects disaster response readiness, thus developing a valid measurement tool. These findings offer the hospital management a guideline with which to assess the hospital response capability and further improve their response performance.

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Huey Wen Lim
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Credits:
Video produced by @Munqith Alazzawi

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