Abstract

Managing human resources in hospitals is a complex process, which becomes more critical in times of emergency or crisis. Hospital surge capacity (SC) deals with the ability to manage sudden or dramatic boosts in patient numbers. Preparedness for addressing SC issues is vital for effective healthcare delivery. Availability of skilled, adequate and motivated healthcare workforce is an integral part of SC. Researchers show that limited attention has been given to explicitly addressing human resource management (HRM) issues in SC preparedness plans. Research around HRM issues associated with SC of hospitals in developing countries is also notably low. The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented challenges to hospitals across the globe. Hospitals were arguably unprepared for a crisis of this magnitude. Sri Lankan hospitals confront a dual crisis as the country’s pandemic impact was compounded by an economic crisis. Based on the HRM process perspective and the practice perspective of crisis management, this study explored the HRM challenges and response strategies associated with SC issues in four Sri Lankan hospitals, across the two crises. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 hospital managers. Thematic analysis was performed on the transcribed data, assisted with NVivo. This study add to HRM, crisis management and hospital preparedness literature, insights from a developing country context. Findings can be useful to policy makers and HRM practitioners in local hospitals for designing sustainable SC solutions to prevail challenges of future crises.

Keywords

Hospital preparedness, Surge capacity, Human resource management, Crisis, Developing countries.