Utility Failures in Health Care Toolkit

Utility failures are a major concern for health care and may cause substantial harm to patients, staff, and facilities. Threats include infrastructure damage due to natural disasters and other incidents, planned outages to relieve stress on services or prevent other hazards, and malicious acts such as physical and cyber sabotage. It is also important to note the cascading effects a failure of one utility may have on others; more than one utility may fail simultaneously or sequentially. This suite of tip sheets can help health care facility managers and emergency planners identify issues to consider when planning for and responding to various types of utility failures.