Experts' Views on the Gaps in Public Health Emergency Preparedness in Israel: A Qualitative Case Study

Background: Despite the significant improvement in all components of preparedness in the past decade, there are still gaps between the guidelines and the reality on the ground. The purpose of this study is to explore how Israeli public health and emergency medicine experts perceive the demands for health organization emergency preparedness and the actual practice. Methods: Qualitative phenomenological research. We interviewed 22 Israeli public health and emergency medicine experts face-To-face and conducted a content analysis. Results: The findings revealed barriers in the following areas: preparation and readiness of hospitals, preparedness and readiness in the community, connection between the community and the hospital, inter-Agency coordination and interface, interdisciplinary integration, preparedness resources, postcrisis evaluation, assimilating smart technologies, information accessibility, and communication. Conclusions: To reduce the gap between theory and practice, retrospective research and evaluation must be included to learn in depth what strategies and resources should be used during a health crisis. Likewise, profiles should be constructed and the community should be segmented in order to design resilience programs and accommodate information to subpopulations.