Assessing hospital preparedness: comparison of an on-site survey with a self-reported, internet-based, long-distance tabletop drill.

Background: Methods of defining hospital disaster preparedness are poorly defined in the literature, leaving wide discrepancies between a hospital's self-reported preparedness and that assessed by an objective reviewer.

Objectives: This study compared self-reported surge capacity data from individual hospitals, obtained from a previously reported long-distance tabletop drill (LDTT) prior to the 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament in Cape Town, South Africa, with surge capacity data assessed by an on-site survey inspection team.

Methods: In this prospective, observational study, contact persons used in the prior LDTT assessing hospital disaster preparedness in the lead-up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup made surge capacity assessments (licensed bed capacity plus surge capacity beds) for the respiratory intensive care unit (RICU), neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), medical intensive care unit (MICU), and general medical/surgical beds in each hospital. Following the 2010 World Cup, this data was then re-evaluated by an on-site survey team consisting of two of the authors.

Results: The contact persons for the individual hospitals from the LDTT underreported their individual hospital's surge capacity in 86% (95% CI, 46%-99%) of RICU beds; 100% (95% CI, 63%-100%) of MICU beds; 75% (95% CI, 40%-94%) of NICU beds; and 71% (95% CI, 35%-92%) of medical/surgical beds compared with the on-site inspection team.

Conclusions: The contact persons for the LDTT overwhelmingly underreported surge capacity beds compared with the surge capacity determined by the on-site inspection team.