Disaster Emergency Management Essay Sample

As the newly appointed Disaster/Emergency Preparedness Officer, the organizations management has assigned me the task of designing a comprehensive disaster/emergency preparedness and management plan for a local hospital located in Falls City, Nebraska. This health facility is a 100-bed acute care, critical access health facility offering both outpatient and inpatient health care services to about 1000 households in Falls City, as well as other patients and visitors from the larger Nebraska region. Our facility operates on an estimated annual budget of $20 million, with the hospital providing a large percentage of our disaster preparedness and management funding.

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Emergency Management Problem

The community health facility has recently completed a comprehensive evaluation of the current disaster preparedness and management program conducted by officers from the States Department of Health Services. The outcome of this assessment revealed that our existing Comprehensive Emergency Management program has several flaws that make the risk for disasters too high and the facility unable to manage potential emergencies locally. Particularly, vulnerabilities are too great; the scale of hazard is too high and lacks an all high-risk hazard approach to disaster management.

Objective

Our main objective is to create a single set of emergency management arrangements (hospital Major Medical Incident Management Program) to be applied to all low and high risk hazards our health facility and the local community are facing, and to align the Major Medical Incident Management Plan with the State Department of Health Services incident management guidelines.

Intended Outcome

Once we complete designing the new incident management plan and implement it appropriately, the health facility will have a Medical Contingency Response Plan that:

(i) Provide an all high-risk hazard approach for effective and efficient response and management of both internal and external hazards

(ii) Efficiently utilize allocated resources and supplies

(iii) Offer professional and timely care for disaster victims; and

(iv) Aligned with the State Department of Health Services incident management guidelines.

Human Resources.

We have, however, come up with a team that will assist us in working on the flaws that are within our management program. The disaster preparedness officer will be the group leader who will help us enact our policies and functions. Additionally, we will also need active participation from the following groups:

a) The medical staff unit- they will offer experienced advice based on hazards that have commonly arisen in the hospital. The group will also offer valuable information on the organization/ hospital.

b) The state health officer- to advice on areas of vulnerability as well as hazards that are likely to be faced by the hospital and to ensure that all hospitals supplies are utilized appropriately.

c) Officers from the state department- to help reduce, end the flaws and the disasters which were found to be too high.

d) Insurance companies used by outpatients- who will ensure that their patients, as well as companies, are adequately covered in areas of their health and disasters.

e) The migration department- to ensure that all visitors and people in Nebraska are legal citizens so as to help prevent future congestion in the hospital.

f) The hospital IT department- to ensure that all hospital data is keyed in the hospital system for safer storage.

g) The hospital insurance sector who will help analyze all areas in which the hospital needs to be insured against.

The management program can also seek further assistance from national organizations such as:

a) SERS (Smart Emergency Response System)

b) NIMS (National Incident Management program) which will help reach the incident management guidelines.

Outline of Necessary Actions

The commander who in this case is our team leader will take up the role of delegating duties to each group. Secondly, after the delegation, the team leader will issue out a deadline where all findings/ reports by each group should be brought forward. While carrying out these activities the objectives will be:

a) Identifying the flaws that are likely to occur.

b) Analyze the flaws based on occurrence, cause, and impact of the event

c) Identify our capabilities and shortcomings

d) Provide recommendations that will lead us to follow the plan

Moreover, there are various hazards that we face on this unit. They include:

a) Food, water and supplies vulnerability

b) Congestion in the hospital

c) Delayed Insurance claims

d) Loss of hospital data by the medical staff

e) Weather-related hazards such as Tornado

f) Delayed hospital funding

Specific challenges we have had while creating a disaster/emergency preparedness and management plan for a local hospital in Falls City, Nebraska include:

a) Failure of patients to following up their medical check-ups. This has led to various health problems developing into worse conditions leading to the hospital running out of supply at a faster rate.

b) Delayed disasters response by the some of the partnered organizations. This has led to the worsening of the disaster by the time the response has arrived.

Therefore to manage the disasters that have been stated there will be a course of activities that will take part which can give a 30 days timeline for completion. These activities will be looked into by the team leader as well as discussed by the other groups. They include;

a) Prevention activities- through sharing of information whenever there is a disaster which is likely to occur and ensuring safeness from the disaster.

b) Preparedness Activities- Example training on what people should do in case the disaster occurs, having a plan to prevent all disaster and hazard analysis.

c) Response activities- which will be defined by the team leader and more ideas added to it by the other group units.

Our first step in writing our plan is to review the previous existing plans. The hospital in falls had the plan to ensure that there is an efficient utilization of supplies, provide high-risk hazard approach, and to ensure that its disaster management is aligned with the state department of health service.

The official guidance review to this plan to ensure that we are in compliance:

a) Federal Guidance (NIM, SEM)

b) Departmental Guidance (Medical stuff, It specialist)

c) Local Guidance (Insurance offices, community at large, Supplies Distributers)

The actual plan is supplemented by several organizations whereby each group has a team designed for a specified emergency function. However, there are requirements for each group that matches the applicable scenario. After the draft is completed the review is distributed to all team members and the applicable agencies. A period of time is given for coordination which can be approximately 25-30 days. This could be a difficult and a frustrating time because:

a) Some members might not like having negative thoughts especially those based on natural disasters or life and death situations. This might result to procrastination of coordination

b) Other team members might be resistant to change and could take quite a lot of time in thinking through the draft.

c) Another group could be of those who are more busy/ occupied and might need more time to actually go through the draft.

This means that it is important for the team leader to emphasize the importance of the plan and each members participation. Other matters discussed during the forum include:

a) Exercising the recent findings

b) Training manpower

In order to effectively monitor the disaster management program, all reports and tracks should be keenly prepared. The commander should ensure that the deadlines are also met.

Material and Financial resources.

Having mentioned that we receive a sum of $20million it is obvious that we need not an addition of money. The main resource should be based on manpower resource whereby the manager to the emergency program should be an experienced, skillful and knowledgeable person. This will enable a fair distribution of the funds being allocated to the supplies and other departments at large. This is because other departments tend to prioritize their needs and demands more than the other departments. A knowledgeable manager will skillfully solve this issue.

There should be funds budgeted for small exercises such as disaster training and other sources. Mitigation grants as a resource are also important which should be taken in as the backup plan in case of financial delays. Another resource should be based on the construction of buildings and facilities that can manage a climatic disaster. It is preferable to introduce these ideas as new ones during our meetings so that they can be seriously examined and considered.

I verify that I have independently completed this essay.

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