Dear Colleagues,

We are honoured to invite you to The International Health and Hospital Management Congress which we will hold for the fourteenth time this year.

There have always been natural phenomena on Earth. Natural disasters continue to increase at a rate parallel to that of people disrupting the natural balance. Disaster is a natural, technological, or human-caused event that causes physical, economic, social, and environmental losses for people. It stops or interrupts normal life and human activities and affects the communities which cannot deal with it by using local means and resources. Earthquakes, floods, landslides, avalanches, droughts, and other disasters negatively affect human life. For this reason, extraordinary situations have arisen in the world as a result of natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and related human movements in recent years. The common point of the destructions caused by these extraordinary events is that they primarily threaten human life and health and cause social and economic losses. Unfortunately, a significant part of Türkiye's territory is in an active earthquake zone. Our country is divided into five-degree earthquake zones, which are considered high-hazard zones by the science of earthquake. Approximately 45% of our population lives in the region considered to have the highest earthquake risk. The wounds of the 6 February Earthquakes in the Southeast Anatolia, which we define as the disaster of the century, are still open and fresh. In these extremely severe earthquakes, we lost at least 60,000 of our people and 15 million people have been affected. More than 150 thousand people were injured, thousands of disabled people were left helpless by these earthquakes… Cities, thousands of buildings and lives were destroyed.

Due to the threat to human health, a new concept and health study area related to extraordinary situations has emerged under the name of "Disaster Medicine". The most effective way to be safe from the effects of disasters is to be prepared and equipped as a society. Institutions and organizations that will take part in disaster response must have an effective disaster plan. Disaster planning should be implemented in a way that it includes every unit from local settlements to general public organizations, from civil foundations and organizations to state institutions and it should function efficiently. Disaster plans that will be implemented in the field of health will minimize the loss and injury of people during and after the event. Disasters such as earthquakes, great fires, floods, wars, and mass accidents can be overcome with lesser loss only if prepared and planned in advance.

Destructive earthquakes bring with them an important health problem. In our country, a generally accepted model plan, which can meet the needs of health organizations in major disasters, and includes the risks that hospitals may experience, has not been fully developed even though it has undergone so-called revisions every year. In spite of the fact that disasters are incredibly crucial situations that directly concern health institutions and hospitals in this sense.

Nevertheless, the recent earthquake has shown us that all of the development efforts we have taken in our health institutions such as plannings, drills, and institutions related to disaster management, which we assume to be strengthened, are only on paper.

Therefore, effective disaster management is a must, which starts with the occurrence of an event and aims to meet all the needs of the affected communities in a timely, rapid, and effective manner, and ends when the reasons necessitating the emergency disappear. It covers the intervention and short-term recovery activities of disaster management. Effective emergency management requires being planned, prepared, and coordinated. Its difference from ordinary management is the use of extraordinary means, resources, and power. In this context, the main theme of this year's congress will be "Health Management in Disasters, Its Effect on Clinical Practices and Its Costs for the Health Sector".