IMPACT ON CHILEAN HOSPITALS FOLLOWING THE 2015 ILLAPEL EARTHQUAKE

In a post-disaster environment, hospitals play a critical role in healthcare services continuities to the population while
\neffectively coping with eventual losses of functionality. These losses come from physical damage to the facility, loss of
\nutility lifelines, failure in supply chains, and reduction of personnel. However, data describing the detailed performance of
\nhospitals during past earthquakes are scarce. Consequently, following the 2015 Mw 8.3 Illapel earthquake in central Chile,
\nan exhaustive field campaign was carried out in the Coquimbo region to collect substantial perishable data to describe
\nphysical damage to hospitals and functionality losses. This study presents first the baseline information obtained in nine
\nsurveyed government hospitals, including size, location and type of infrastructure. Then, the seismic impact was analyzed
\nand classified to show the main physical structural and non-structural damage, lifeline interruptions, losses in hospital units,
\nand variations in flow of patients and staff. Transfers, discharges and evacuations of patients that occurred after the event
\nwere also reported. We found that the earthquake did not affect strongly the healthcare service despite the fact that most of
\nthe structural and non-structural damage was localized in the largest regional hospital. The archival nature of the data
\ncollected may deepen our understanding of the post-earthquake healthcare system performance, which is very useful in
\nimproving disaster preparation and overall resilience.