The Disaster Management Office , the predecessor of our center, was established in April 2013 at Oita University Hospital. Its responsibilities included building a disaster response system, developing a Business Continuity Plan (BCP), managing the disaster response manual and action cards, as well as overseeing and operating the medical response team.
Owing to increased responsibilities and the growing diversity of tasks, strengthening the organizational structure was determined to be indispensable. Consequently, in April 2024, we reorganized as the Disaster Management Center (DMC), adding two full-time faculty members and establishing three divisions: the Contingency Planning Division, the Liaison and Coordination Division, and the Data Management Division.
We will strengthen collaborations with local governments and medical institutions to promote regional BCP initiatives and training throughout Oita Prefecture. Additionally, within the Crisis Management Organization of Oita University, we collaborated with the Center for Education and Research on Disaster Risk Reduction and Redesign (CERD) at Oita University. This partnership focuses on integrating emergency and disaster medical data into the disaster prevention and reduction platform “EDiSON (Earth Disaster Intelligent System & Operational Network)” in addition to fostering the development of new insights in the field of data science, including artificial intelligence (AI) analysis.