Award for outstanding master's thesis in disaster risk reduction
At the Parliamentary Evening on Risk Communication on October 12, 2023 in Berlin, the master's thesis of Chris Hetkämper, a graduate of the TH Köln, was honored with the promotional award of the German Committee for Disaster Risk Reduction. The topic of his thesis was the assessment of plans for the emergency energy supply of hospitals.
Since 2018, every year the German Committee for Disaster Risk Reduction (DKKV) has honored one Bachelor's and one Master's thesis that significantly contribute to German disaster risk reduction. The first places are endowed with prize money and membership of the Young Professionals. Chris Hetkämper, a graduate of the Master's degree program in Rescue Engineering at TH Köln, was awarded first place for the year 2022. The topic of his thesis was: "Method for the evaluation and assessment of hospital emergeny power planning".
Die Vertreter*innen von THW-Stiftung, DRK e.V. und DKKV e.V. mit den Preisträger*innen 2022 und 2023
(Image: Laurin Schmid / bundesfoto)
Based on research into the legal framework and two scoping reviews on hospital alarm and emergency planning and on assessment methods for the emergency power supply of hospitals, it was identified that although there are detailed specifications for the design of the emergency power supply, the assessment of its implementation represents a gap in science and practice. Accordingly, a synthesis of decision analysis methods was used to develop a staged evaluation and assessment model that takes into account technical and organizational dependencies. This model was tested empirically and validated via expert interviews. One surprising result was that the developed method can also be used to examine the dependencies and criticalities of the system.
November 2023