Workshop Summary

The purpose of the MCEER Workshop for Seismic Hazard Mitigation of Health Care Facilities was to formulate an action plan to develop retrofit strategies/guidelines for hospitals. The workshop focused on defining and identifying subsystems, features and performance requirements of health care facilities, how eastern practices differ from those in California, and how California's experience can be modified and applied in the east.

A roundtable discussion format was adopted by the organizers to provide the group with the opportunity to explore this important topic in the context of their respective backgrounds. End users and researchers were able to express their concerns to each other so that a comprehensive plan could eventually be developed that considers health care facilities from a holistic viewpoint. Four technical areas were discussed: structural, nonstructural, social/economic/political, and emergency management.

The workshop attendees were selected from four different professional categories. They represented academia, industry, government officials and emergency management officials. In order to achieve balanced enrollment, the number of participants from each category was chosen to be about the same. Table 1-1 presents the distribution of workshop participants and assignments for roundtable discussions.

Table 1-1 Distribution of Workshop Participants¹
Assignment to Roundtable Groups

Workshop Organization

The workshop was convened to address how to insure continued functionality of health care facilities during and after earthquake events. Figure 1-1 illustrates the key elements leading to post earthquake functionality. They can be categorized into four major keys:

1. Sound structural behavior.
2. Continued functioning of nonstructural components.
3. Emergency management issues.
4. Social and economic issues.

Most importantly, figure 1-1 indicates the nature of interaction and integration among all these key functional elements.

Figure 1-1 Key Elements Leading to Post-earthquake Functionality

The workshop was arranged to reflect these key functional groups. First, several presentations covering the four functional key elements were given to all attendees. Next, the workshop was subdivided into four working groups. Each group was tasked to deliberate one of the specific key elements. After that, the four groups were integrated to two integrated groups. The first group combined the structural and the nonstructural groups. The second group combined the emergency management group and the social/economic group. The deliberations of these two integrated groups concentrated on the integration and interaction between the functionality of the two underlying groups. Finally, all workshop participants were assembled to discuss all the issues, with special emphasis on integration and interaction parameters between all groups. Figure 1-2 shows the workshop plan.

Organization of Workshop Proceedings

This report summarizes the deliberations and conclusions of the workshop. First, the discussions of each group, or integrated group, are summarized. Each chapter contains a brief description of the tasks of each group as well as a short summary of the conclusions. A general summary chapter is presented at the end of the report. The appendices contain the workshop agenda and participants, presentations materials used by the participants, a comprehensive listing of nonstructural components that pertain to health care facilities that was gathered by Prof. Mircea Grigoriu, and an important social/economic statement by Prof. Joanne Nigg.

Figure 1-2 General Outline of the Workshop