Disasters can be external or internal or a combination for a health care organization.
Sometimes disasters are both, i.e. earthquakes with building damage, tornadoes, floods. Health care delivery systems will need to respond to multiple emerging problems simultaneously with hospitals absorbing a large number of patients. One hospital is the communication center for receiving information and dispatching victims to the metropolitan hospitals. Once alerted, the hospital headquarters for the HEAR system begins hospital notification. Hospitals then begin their individual disaster protocols.