Survey study reveals delayed resource constraints despite strong initial triage in a burn center disaster response, highlighting gaps in long-term support.
Key Points
To evaluate institutional strengths and operational challenges across different phases of an all-hazards disaster response following an urban residential explosion at a level one trauma and burn center.
Anonymous 15-question digital REDCap survey distributed to emergency, ICU, inpatient burn, and outpatient burn clinic management personnel (N=16).
Independent thematic analysis of multiselection and free-text survey responses conducted by three investigators to ensure coding consistency.
Initial emergency response demonstrated high capacity with minimal operational challenges during the earliest phases.
Resource constraints—specifically supply availability, staffing shortages, and physical space limitations—predominated during the intermediate-to-long-term recovery phase (2 weeks to 6 months).
Interprofessional teamwork was consistently rated highly across all response intervals, though respondents reported inadequate institutional recognition of prolonged staff strain.