Operational Resilience of Hospital Power Systems in the Digital Age

An advanced guideline is required to support the design of power supply systems for the performances of service continuity and power outage resilience, which are vital for hospital power systems and strategic operational structures (SOSs). The supply sources, the power system topology, and its management are fundamental in guaranteeing the electrical resilience of the power system. There is still no standard to evaluate the adequacy of hospital power systems for natural calamities and human-made disasters and, subsequently, for the ordinary operation. The World Health Organization recognizes it as a basic problem and at this aim has to claim clearly the status of SOSs for the hospitals, recommending to safeguard and plan the full operability. The hospital power systems need a local fortified electrical structure, designed for service continuity during fault events and managed to ensure an adequate dynamic response to any emergency and maintenance needs. The importance of the business continuity management is highlighted; it has to be qualified for a permanent design with both the in-op approaches for the initial installation of the system and its life cycle operation.