Jordan Bartlett, a Facility & Seismic Resilience consultant at Proactive Design in Australia, considers how those responsible for keeping plant and equipment safe and secure in healthcare facilities need – where their region is at risk of such occurrences – to prepare a Business Continuity Plan to cater for natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes, with a particular focus on experience in Australia and New Zealand.
Earthquakes are natural hazards that are defined as a 'disaster' when the built environment fails. The Australian and New Zealand building codes have resilience measures (standards) for these events, although they are often misunderstood, overlooked, or discounted through inaction or avoidance. In new construction and upgrade of facilities, there is strong reliance upon the construction industry to make resilience decisions without critical review by resilience specialists or specific direction from facility owners, operators, or the end-client.
The National Construction Code of Australia requires 'holistic design' to meet its many parts, but what happens when constant change results in vulnerabilities in our systems, and, worse — are the perceived 'minimum standards' adequate or holistically met? Is there capacity for post-disaster function built into our medical facilities? Who is measuring/testing these resilience measures, and where does business continuity influence facility design?
This paper is generally focused on the Australian experience, although the New Zealand experience for earthquake resilience is still in need of significant advancement. In this article I attempt to address these shortfalls, and hopefully disrupt the comfort of facility stakeholders (Yes, you, the reader) before medical facilities are shaken and stirred.
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