Principles Of Emergency Management Research Articles

Changing realities in school safety and preparedness

This paper investigates new realities in emergency preparedness and safety for schools and other educational facilities in a budgetary climate where the sector is being asked to do more with fewer resources. The paper provides a guide to overcoming issues connected with staffing levels and apathy, incorporating principles of emergency management in schools, collaboration with other agencies, communications, training and exercises, and the needs of children during emergencies in order to deliver a cohesive emergency management and safety programme.

Health Care Emergency Management: Establishing the Science of Managing Mass Casualty and Mass Effect Incidents

Particularly since 2001, the health care industry has witnessed many independent and often competing efforts to address mitigation and preparedness for emergencies. Clinicians, health care administrators, engineers, safety and security personnel, and others have each developed relatively independent efforts to improve emergency response. A broader conceptual approach through the development of a health care emergency management profession should be considered to integrate these various critical initiatives. When based on long-standing emergency management principles and practices, health care emergency management provides standardized, widely accepted management principles, application concepts, and terminology. This approach could also promote health care integration into the larger community emergency response system. The case for a formally defined health care emergency management profession is presented with discussion points outlining the advantages of this approach.

Prepare, plan, practice

Prepare, plan, practice

The principles of emergency management

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Animals in disaster: The emergency planning process of Heartland Humane Society, Corvallis, Oregon

Animals play a major role in people’s lives. Humans interact with animals in the food chain, train them for entertainment, and often accept them as integral members of their families. Recent disasters have shown the strength of the human-animal bond; for example, a number of people have refused to leave flooded homes without their pets.Organizations that deal with animal control can play a vital role during disasters. This case study highlights the employment of emergency management principles at a community animal shelter. The study follows the project from initial assessments through the development of an initial emergency program. Key elements in this process include a realistic risk assessment, training, and available local support, as well as economic concerns. Although this does not display a finished product, it demonstrates the initial steps involved in creating an emergency management program for a small public service organization.

The recognition and early management of critical illness

Critical illness is an emergency because the inflammatory response has redundant multiple pathways; once triggered, it is difficult to control or suppress. Infection is a potent precursor of critical illness and increasing organ dysfunction has a synergistic, rather than purely additive, adverse effect on mortality. The longer the inflammatory process continues unabated, the more advanced and unrecoverable the pathophysiological processes become resulting in a high mortality. The review is a statement of the author's opinion supported by selected references. The content of the review was presented as the Tutor Edwards Lecture at The Royal College of Surgeons of England in December 2004. Critical illness is preceded by prodromal signs warning of impending physiological catastrophe. These simple physiological signs, the most sensitive of which is the respiratory rate can be quantified using Early Warning Scores. If patients trigger the Early Warning Score, emergency management is required to reverse the abnormal physiological decline or to prompt admission to a critical care area. The emergency management principles include removal or reversal of the cause so shutting down the inflammatory response, appropriate antibiotic therapy and general organ support. Formalising measurement of physiological (in)stability on the general ward using Early Warning Scores improves recognition of unstable and potentially critically ill patients. Prompt intervention will either reverse further physiological decline or facilitate timely referral to the critical care service for further, more invasive, organ support.

Principles of emergency management in disasters.

The organizational and medical conduct in disaster situations is complex and presents a challenge to every manager in the prehospital setting. The handling of such situations is characterized by the need to make decisions under uncertainty in real time, with deficient medical and support forces. The approach used in mass casualty incident situations is cycles of treatment, commonly known as the "butterfly system." There are serious logistic problems involved, both industrial and structural, physical obstacles that may interfere with rescue treatment and evacuation, disruption in communications, and many other difficulties. On top of these, there are other obstacles such as interruption with the cooperation and coordination of different force, enforcement and rescue teams, the press, inquisitive people, and others. However, the most serious problem of all is the tendency in complex situations to attempt to work with fixed preformed guidelines or protocols for operation. One disaster differs from another, regarding location, number of casualties, distribution, severity, type of injury and the nature of injury, size of available rescue teams, time and equipment needs, damage to roads, distance from hospital, and other variables. One of the most important lessons learned from the management of such incidents is do not set fixed protocols but rather principles only. By applying principles adapted to the situation, managers will be able to perform better.

Scenario methodology for teaching principles of emergency management

Scenarios are discussed in terms of their various uses in emergency planning and management. Their function in teaching programs is assessed with respect to various sorts of curricula for training emergency personnel. The format of scenarios is discussed and the potential for using the methodology creatively is explored. It is concluded that scenario methods are useful in developing such skills as time management, cognitive mapping, mediation, team management, and decision making under stress. A brief example of an emergency training scenario is presented and evaluated in terms of its teaching potential. Finally, scenarios are assessed in relation to other forms of modelling and simulation, such as table‐top games and field exercises, which are commonly used for training emergency managers.

Model framework and principles of emergency management.

If not handled quickly and effectively, animal health emergencies can create significant problems for governments and industry. Placing strong emphasis on preventing a disease incursion in the first instance through the judicious use of quarantine and inspection measures will continue to be the major preventive strategy. However, the discovery of new and emerging diseases, some of which may already be present in a country or region, necessitates a rigorous emergency outbreak response mechanism premised on thorough preparation for an emergency. A generic approach to emergency management is the contemporary answer to preparing for, and dealing with, unpredictable events. In essence, generic emergency management plans encompass a set of core principles and key issues which are relevant to a particular industry or commodity. These principles and issues are then reflected in a model emergency management plan which guides participants through the various stages of preparing for, and responding to, an emergency situation and which forms the basis of more detailed farm/enterprise manuals and individual job cards. The authors illustrate the integrated nature of the model emergency management plan and the interrelationship with the core principles and key issues of emergency management planning.

Rapid evaluation of comatose patients

Coma is a common, life-threatening medical problem encountered by primary care physicians. The principles of emergency management mandate that adequate oxygenation, blood flow, and supplementation with thiamine and glucose be given to the brain before a thorough diagnostic evaluation is undertaken. Knowledge of the usual causes of coma coupled with clues from the neurologic examination often aid in diagnosis and provide useful prognostic information.

Accident Surgery. Vol 2

This volume comprises all of the lectures delivered at the Second Postgraduate Course on Emergency and Accident Trauma, the first having been held in 1961 and already published, the third, held in 1963, yet to be published. The lecturers included 24 physicians, chiefly members of the faculty of McGill University but also W. L. Estes, Jr., H. L. McLaughlin, J. I. Tuell, and P. A. Wade from the United States, and J. C. Scott from England. The subjects covered range from the organization of accident services, use of a resuscitation room and blood bank, through automobile accidents and their prevention, to the specific emergency and definitive management of specific injuries to various organ systems of the body. Emphasis in each of the 31 presentations is on identification and classification of injuries, principles of emergency management, and, in some cases, detailed procedures for definitive management. All are clear and exceedingly practical.