Inadequate Disaster Planning for Nursing Homes

Next week, the students in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare course will be giving their team project presentations, which I am very much looking forward to.

Several have elected to focus on evacuation networks and are conducting  interviews in hospitals and even prison facilities.

We have learned a lot in this course this semester and have emphasized all phases of disasters from mitigation and preparedness to recovery and reconstruction and have spent a lot of time on emergency preparedness.

I have brought in outstanding speakers to educate and inform and we have learned about such essential issues as information gathering and disaster communications, collaboration, and even the role of transportation in disasters.


There is a shocking article in the USA Today about the lack of disaster preparedness in nursing homes.

I hope that this very important issue gets the attention that it deserves, especially since most of the residents of nursing homes are women in their 80s and helpless to varying degrees.

I plan on posting soon my lecture notes for my new course since I believe that, in doing so, I will be not only be doing a public service, but also helping to educate others on these very important topics.