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An Index To Measure Efficiency Of Hospital Networks For Mass Casualty Disasters, Maria Bull Torres

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Disaster events have emphasized the importance of healthcare response activities due to the large number of victims. For instance, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, in 2005, and the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, left thousands of wounded people. In those disasters, although hospitals had disaster plans established for more than a decade, their plans were not efficient enough to handle the chaos produced by the hurricane and terrorist attacks. Thus, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) suggested collaborative planning among hospitals that provide services to a contiguous geographic area …