Can you count on Willing To Respond (WTR) results? In a pandemic, you may be alone

Abstract

Objective Willingness To Respond (WTR) is the measurement of employees' preferences to come to work during off-hours when needed. Are these answers given before a disaster realistic? Another question of the study was, "Can we speed up the required staff to reach the hospital?" Methods WTR survey has applied to emergency service staff. After that, the off-duty staff was called to work at a time they did not know beforehand. The study tried to identify how much WTR reflected the reality. Results Ninety of 98 (91.8%) participants whose surveys were evaluated answered "Yes" to "If you are called in case of disaster, would you come to duty?" question. When asked whether they will come to work according to disaster types, this rate was measured as 36.7% in "In the case of an infectious disease of which treatment is not clear". Conclusions WTR surveys can be used to predict the level of participation of staff on off-hours in meeting the need for additional labor. These surveys' results can be expected to be similar to the labor participation rates in case of a real disaster and the arrival time of the staff at the hospital can be improved with new communication methods.

Keywords

• emergency
• disaster
• hospital incident command system

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