Benefits, barriers, and limitations on the use of Hospital Incident Command System

Abstract

Background: Hospital Incident Command System (HICS) has been established with the mission of prevention, response, and recovery in hazards. Regarding the key role of hospitals in medical management of events, the present study is aimed at investigating benefits, barriers, and limitations of applying HICS in hospital. Materials and Methods: Employing a review study, articles related to the aforementioned subject published from 1995 to 2016 were extracted from accredited websites and databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, Elsevier, and SID by searching keywords such as HICS, benefits, barriers, and limitations. Then, those articles were summarized and reported. Results: Using of HICS can cause creating preparedness in facing disasters, constructive management in strategies of controlling events, and disasters. Therefore, experiences indicate that there are some limitations in the system such as failure to assess the strength and severity of vulnerabilities of hospital, no observation of standards for disaster management in the design, constructing and equipping hospitals, and the absence of a model for evaluating the system. Accordingly, the conducted studies were investigated for probing the performance HICS. Conclusion: With regard to the role of health in disaster management, it requires advanced international methods in facing disasters. Using accurate models for assessing, the investigation of preparedness of hospitals in precrisis conditions based on components such as command, communications, security, safety, development of action plans, changes in staff’s attitudes through effective operational training and exercises and creation of required maneuvers seems necessary.

Key words: Barriers, benefits, Hospital Incident Command System, hospital management, limitations