Factors Influencing the Resilience of Treatment Systems during Pandemics of Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Agents: A Narrative Review

The health system plays a crucial role in responding to pandemics caused by emerging and re-emerging infectious agents. It is a complex system encompassing political, economic, social, and environmental components. Coordination among the health system, its sub-systems, and the broader ecosystem is essential to achieve desired outcomes. Addressing biological threats, economic and social shocks, natural disasters, and conflicts is a key task of the health system and its subsets. A successful health system is one that can adapt and evolve in response to changing needs. Strategies to enhance the resilience of the health system in dealing with acute, sudden, and severe shocks differ from those needed to address well-known chronic challenges such as an aging population.The concept of resilience in health and treatment facilities is relatively new, aiming to reduce vulnerability and increase adaptability to human and non-human pressures and unforeseen events, enabling swift responses to changing circumstances while minimizing damage. Given the critical nature of healthcare spaces and the need for resilience during pandemics, specific measures and models are necessary. Previous research on resilience has focused on natural disasters like floods and earthquakes, primarily considering the physical structure of cities. However, there is a lack of focus on healthcare facilities and the development of suitable solutions. Therefore, this study aims to identify the factors influencing the resilience of treatment systems during pandemics of emerging and re-emerging infectious agents.