2021 Emergency Management Flashcards
List and describe the steps in the Emergency Management cycle
Prevention:
- Activities and programs that prevent a potential emergency from occurring
- This phase is usually the focus of public health activities
- The HIRA underlies emergency planning, bridging between prevention and mitigation
Mitigation
- Activities and programs that reduce the impact of an emergency on a community; can occur before, during, or after an event
Preparedness
- Activities and programs that prepare individuals, organizations, or communities for an efficient emergency response; occurs before an event; best practices in preparedness include:
- System checks
- Emergency Response plans: The ERP bridges between the preparedness and response phases
- Training and exercises
Response
- Activities and programs that address the immediate effects of an emergency
- Public health is not typically a first responders; first responders usually include fire, police, and paramedics; hospitals are first receivers
- The COOP bridges between the response and recovery phases by promoting the return to normal operations
Recovery
- Activities and programs that restore a community to an acceptable condition; typically the longest phase of the emergency management cycle
Name 7 principles of the Incident Management System (IMS)
- Modular: Composed of discrete but interrelated components
- Interoperable: The functional and technological ability for responders from different jurisdictions and organizations to work together (e.g., by sharing the same procedures and communications technologies)
- Standardized: Shared management structures and terminology
- Simple: Elements are eliminated when no longer needed
- Unity of command: Each person, at every level, reports to only one clearly designated supervisor
- Integrated communications
- Flexible and scalable: Can be expanded to address any size of incident; a single person can act alone as an the entire incident management system (i.e., if one person is sufficient to address all needs, then there is no need to establish a command or general staff); as needs change, system can be scaled up
What are the differences between the Emergency Response Plan (ERP) and the Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) ?
Emergency Response Plan (ERP)
- Definition: Plan that defines the initiation and conduction of an emergency response; defines how the organization mobilizes to address an emergency (outward-looking)
- outward-facing – ie ERP outlines the ways in which an organization will engage with the community or other organizations during an emergency (e.g. services that will be offered)
Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP)
- Definition: Plan that defines how organizational interests will be protected and essential operations will be sustained during an emergency (aka business continuity plan);
- defines how an organization mobilizes to sustain its essential functions during an emergency (inward-looking)
List three examples of common COOP scenarios?
- Strike contingency planning
- Loss of access to a facility
- Loss of services due to equipment or system failure
Describe the steps of a COOP with regards to a contingency strike?
Case study: Contingency strike
- Identify and prioritize critical functions of the organization
- Identify the minimum number of staff and the minimum skill set required to maintain the critical functions (can these functions be temporarily filled by management? contractors?)
- Determine how the organization will proceed with non-critical functions during a strike (e.g., temporarily cease the function, reduce function)
- Develop strategies to reduce the impact of the strike on critical functions (e.g., alternative work locations, site closures)
- Develop strategies to address the following during the strike:
- Security (e.g., how will you ensure safety of staff who continue to come to work?)
- Staff redeployment
- Replacement workers/contractors
- Picket line monitoring
- Communication (external and internal)
- IT (e.g., can striking staff access their voicemail, e-mail, etc.?)
- Payroll
- Human resources
- Based on steps 1-5, write a strike contingency plan
- Train management staff to deploy the strike contingency plan
What are some key compoents of an Emergency Response Plan?
- Authority to activate and deactive the plan
- Threshold level/trigger points to activate and deactivate the plan
- Roles & responsibility of members of the Emergency Control Group
- Structures, processes, tools to be used during the emergency
- Communication process regard internal staff notification, public crisis communication and external partner notification
- Coordination with other agencies e.g. Ministry of Health Emergency Operations Centre
- Health and Safety of employees
What are the differences betwen a Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment, a Health Risk Assessment, and Health Impact Assessment?
HIRA: A risk assessment tool for organizations/communities to plan for emergency. HIRA aims to identify hazards that pose the greatest risk to a community/organization, both in terms of probability of occurrence and severity of impact, and visually displaying the findings in a matrix for planning purposes. HIRA involves hazard identification, risk assessment, risk analysis, and regular monitoring and reviewing HIRA.
Remember Hazard = source of danger and risk = probability of occurance x impact
Health Risk Assessment: A tool to evaluate the qualitative and quantitative risk posed to human health and/or the environment by the actual or potential presence and/or use of specific pollutants. Can be done before exposure occur but often done after exposure occur. Health Risk assessment includes hazard identification, exposure assessment, dose-response assessment, and finally risk characterization.
Health Impact Assessment: A tool to evaluate the impacts of a proposed policy, program, or service on the health of a population. HIA most frequently applied to assess proposed policy/program/service that are outside of the traditional health care sector and which do not target health as their principla goal. 5 steps: Screening –>Scoping –> Appraising –>Reporting –> Monitoring
What are the roles of public health in emergency management?
1) Surveillance (Early detection of events)
2) Investigation (Epidemiological and lab)
3) Risk communication (inform, education and empower people)
4) Mobilize community partnership
5) Making evidence-based recommendations to policy makers
6) Mass Immunization/PEP
7) Command and control and enforcement of laws in health-related emergency such as COVID19 pandemic
