Hazard Assessment in Fars Province Hospitals in Iran in 2017

INTRODUCTION: Fars is a disaster-prone province which is affected by a myriad of disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, fires, and traffic accidents. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the disaster risk of hospitals in Fars province in 2017. METHODS: This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed in 2017. Out of 90 hospitals in Fars province, 51 centers cooperated in the presented study. Six prevalent disasters and crises in Fars province were identified using the recorded incidents in the last 20 years in the Emergency Operation Center (EOC) of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. A book entitled "National tools for the assessment of risks and indicators of specialized competencies of the health sector in response to hazards and disasters (risk map), which was written for the Ministry of Health of Iran in 2014, was used to assess and obtain the risk score.  The maximum and minimum risk scores were obtained at 95 and 19, respectively, and the data were analyzed in Excel 2016. FINDINGS: The mean and standard deviation of the obtained scores for different hazards were reported as 56.039±175.785 (earthquake), 45.962 ± 322.17 (seasonal flood), 575.786.195±19.57 (drought), 909.18±686.36 (chemical threats), 47.764±18.066 (human-caused fires), and 50.235±15.709 (power outage). In most hospitals, the risk of earthquakes and the negative impact of drought were higher than other hazards, while the chemical threats obtained the lowest score. CONCLUSION: Since Fars province is a disaster-prone area, the risk assessment should be periodically performed at short intervals to identify hazards with higher risk scores and implement corrective measures in this regard.