Critical Path Network: Joint Commission issues timely disaster report
Critial Path Network
Joint Commission issues timely disaster report
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has issued Standing Together: An Emergency Planning Guide for America’s Communities, a step-by-step guide for small, rural, and suburban communities to prepare for and successfully respond to major local and regional emergencies.
An all-disaster planning approach addresses hurricanes, floods, terrorist attacks, major infectious outbreaks, hazardous materials spills, or other catastrophic occurrences. Though certainly timely, the planning guide is the culmination of a two-year project funded by the Illinois Department of Public Health, the Maryland Institute of Emergency Medical Services Systems, and the National Center for Emergency Preparedness at Columbia University.
13 essential steps
The comprehensive planning guide provides 13 essential steps that local government and public health leaders can use to establish an effective community-based emergency management planning and response process. These steps acknowledge that small communities face a number of significant barriers to emergency readiness, such as uncertainty about who is responsible for planning, how to fund emergency readiness efforts, what exactly constitutes the planning and response processes, and how to coordinate with state and federal emergency management resources.
In the new guide, strategies for and examples of each component are geared to small, rural, and suburban communities. The component steps are to:
- define the community
- identify and establish an emergency management preparedness and response team
- determine the risks and hazards the community faces
- set goals for preparedness and response planning
- determine current capacities and capabilities
- develop the integrated plan
- ensure thorough communication planning
- ensure thorough mental health planning
- ensure planning related to vulnerable populations
- identify, cultivate, and sustain funding sources
- train, exercise, and drill collaboratively
- critique and improve the integrated community plan
- sustain collaboration, communication, and coordination
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