[The Hospital Emergency Plan: Important Tool for Disaster Preparedness].

Hospitals need to be prepared for any kind of disaster. The terrorist attacks and mass shootings that took place in Europe in recent years impressively demonstrated the capability of hospitals to manage such challenging and disastrous events. To be adequately prepared, the hospital emergency plan is a very important tool. In this article we describe the entire process of drafting the emergency plan. We discuss the theoretical background as well as different models of disaster planning and we give important practical hints and tips for those in charge of the hospital disaster planning. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.