Objective To learn the current capacity building of emergency response teams in Tianjin for the purpose of goals setting.Methods Health Emergency Capacity Questionnaire was issued to 89 secondary and above medical institutions and 19 CDCs in Tianjin.The form covered such items as basic institutional information, workforce makeup, emergency preparations, detection and early warning, emergency response, and summary/assessment.Data collected in the questionnaire were subject to descriptive and correlation analysis.Results Tianjin has scored an initial success in emergency medicine as evidenced in its emergency response mechanisms in place, elevated capacity in emergency medical rescue and disposal, and enhanced competence of emergency teams.Rooms of improvement however include insufficient professionalism and independence of health emergency, inadequate emergency commanding and decision making system functions, insufficient laboratory test capacity at district/county levels, and insufficient social involvement in health emergency.Conclusions Top-down design should be emphasized, health emergency response should be enhanced in terms of management and response planning system, while capacity building of the teams and long-term primary care emergency mechanism deserve higher attention.

Objective To understand the ability and level of emergency rescue at general hospitals in Tianjin city. Methods Such actions as formulating plans and examination forms, establishing assessment indicators and evaluation criteria, and simulation exercises were performed to evaluate the capacity of 28 general hospitals in terms of their organizational structure, emergency response, event reporting, and summary assessment. Results The emergency response assessment system consisted of 4 level-1 indicators, 19 level-2 indicators and 58 level-3 indicators. 28 hospitals were found high in their overall emergency response capacity, but some were found with setbacks. For example, the " organizational structure" scored the highest in 4 first-level indicators, up to 88. 91％ , while " incident report" scored the lowest, down to 67. 99％ . Among level-2 indicators, professional emergency professional procedures and initial reporting scored the lowest. Conclusions In order to further improve the ability of medical institutions to respond to emergency events, the hospitals are recommended to enhance their backup resources for emergency response, their staff′s awareness of first aid knowledge and first aid skills, as well as their timeliness of initial reports and the completeness of progress reports.