Bottom-Up Approach to Establish Coordination Mechanisms for Disaster Preparedness Among Largely Private Health-Care Providers in Central Tokyo

In Japan, despite its private-dominant and disjointed health-care system, national initiatives to coordinate various types of health-care facilities are lacking. Municipal governments manage this task with limited resources. This study describes a successful example of a bottom-up approach to create city-wide collaboration for disaster preparedness. In Minato City, located in central Tokyo, a group of physicians created a project involving a city-wide disaster medical care drill. The city Public Health Center, in charge of health-care systems including disaster medicine, helped the group to increase proponents of the project. The city-wide disaster drill started in November 2017; thereafter, the drills were held every year. Participation in drills by various health-care personnel helped establish a city-wide system for disaster medical care, coordination mechanisms among stakeholders, increased motivation among health-care personnel, and development of in-hospital systems. This approach is flexible and applicable to various forms of health-care systems in other areas.