Understanding and Improving the Seismic Resilience of Hospital Buildings

Abstract

The establishment of Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand has enabled more direct national oversight of public hospital buildings across New Zealand. This has also led to the need for a more comprehensive understanding of the seismic status of hospital buildings, and what is needed to address their vulnerabilities. A national seismic work programme has been established by Te Whatu Ora to address these issues, including the establishment of a Health Seismic Engineering Group to develop technical guidance for the design of new hospital buildings.

Post-earthquake functionality of hospitals will to a great extent depend on the performance of non-structural elements, systems and specialist medical contents. The seismic assessment of these can be highly complex and time consuming. Rather than taking a compliance approach, a qualitative triage approach is proposed, focusing on the critical systems needing to support key medical and surgical function following an emergency.

This paper outlines the seismic work programme and summarises the findings of a recent report prepared by Kestrel Group on the seismic resilience of public hospital buildings. This report addressed issues such as the reliability of seismic assessments, options for identifying the vulnerability of non-structural elements, clarifying Importance Level categorisations applicable to the various medical functions delivered in hospital buildings and the need for more specific post-earthquake arrangements with engineering practices.