↓ Skip to main content

Preparedness of Hospitals in the Republic of Ireland for an Influenza Pandemic, an Infection Control Perspective

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, September 2015
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (86th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (82nd percentile)

Mentioned by

news
1 news outlet
twitter
3 X users
facebook
1 Facebook page

Citations

dimensions_citation
18 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
107 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Preparedness of Hospitals in the Republic of Ireland for an Influenza Pandemic, an Infection Control Perspective
Published in
BMC Public Health, September 2015
DOI 10.1186/s12889-015-2025-6
Pubmed ID
Authors

Mary Reidy, Fiona Ryan, Dervla Hogan, Sean Lacey, Claire Buckley

Abstract

When an influenza pandemic occurs most of the population is susceptible and attack rates can range as high as 40-50 %. The most important failure in pandemic planning is the lack of standards or guidelines regarding what it means to be 'prepared'. The aim of this study was to assess the preparedness of acute hospitals in the Republic of Ireland for an influenza pandemic from an infection control perspective. This was a cross sectional study involving a questionnaire completed by infection control nurses, time period from June - July 2013, (3 weeks) from acute public and private hospitals in the Republic of Ireland. A total of 46 out of 56 hospitals responded to the questionnaire. From a sample of 46 Irish hospitals, it was found that Irish hospitals are not fully prepared for an influenza pandemic despite the 2009 Influenza A (H1N1) pandemic. In 2013, thirty five per cent of Irish hospitals have participated in an emergency plan or infectious disease exercise and have plans or been involved in local planning efforts to care for patients at non-health care facilities. Sixty per cent of Irish hospitals did not compile or did not know if the hospital had compiled a "lessons learned" from any exercise that were then used to revise emergency response plans. Fifty two per cent of hospitals have sufficient airborne isolation capacity to address routine needs and have an interim emergency plan to address needs during an outbreak. Fifty one percent of hospitals have taken specific measures to stockpile or have reserve medical supplies e.g. masks, ventilators and linen. This is the first study carried out in the Republic of Ireland investigating the current preparedness for an influenza pandemic from an infection control perspective. Deficits exist in the provision of emergency planning committees, testing of emergency plans, airborne isolation facilities, stockpiling of personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical supplies and organisational schemes/incentives for healthcare workers to continue to work in a pandemic. While Irish standards are comparable to findings from international studies, the health care service needs to continue to enhance preparedness for an influenza pandemic and implement standard preparedness guidance for all Irish hospitals.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 3 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 107 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Switzerland 1 <1%
Unknown 106 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 15 14%
Student > Bachelor 14 13%
Researcher 10 9%
Student > Ph. D. Student 9 8%
Student > Postgraduate 8 7%
Other 19 18%
Unknown 32 30%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 22 21%
Nursing and Health Professions 20 19%
Engineering 7 7%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 5 5%
Social Sciences 4 4%
Other 12 11%
Unknown 37 35%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 12. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 05 August 2020.
All research outputs
#2,464,832
of 22,826,360 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#2,849
of 14,870 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#34,640
of 266,946 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#56
of 329 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,826,360 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 88th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 14,870 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.9. This one has done well, scoring higher than 80% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 266,946 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 329 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 82% of its contemporaries.