Abstract
The current COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vulnerability of healthcare systems worldwide. When combined with natural disasters, pandemics can further strain an already exhausted healthcare system. To date, frameworks for quantifying the collective effect of the two events on hospitals are nonexistent. Moreover, analytical methods for capturing the dynamic spatiotemporal variability in capacity and demand of the healthcare system posed by different stressors are lacking. Here, we investigate the combined impact of wildfire and pandemic on a network of hospitals. We combine wildfire data with varying courses of the spread of COVID-19 to evaluate the effectiveness of different strategies for managing patient demand. We show that losing access to medical care is a function of the relative occurrence time between the two events and is substantial in some cases. By applying viable mitigation strategies and optimizing resource allocation, patient outcomes could be substantially improved under the combined hazards.
Recommended Citation
E. M. Hassan and H. N. Mahmoud, "Orchestrating Performance of Healthcare Networks Subjected to the Compound Events of Natural Disasters and Pandemic," Nature Communications, vol. 12, no. 1, article no. 1338, Nature Research, Dec 2021.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21581-x
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Publication Status
Open Access
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
2041-1723
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2024 The Authors, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Publication Date
01 Dec 2021
PubMed ID
33637734
