Emergency Management Case Study

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Introduction/Problem Statement During an emergency, the ability for a community to respond to and recover from the emergency is reliant on the idea that responding agencies understand their roles and are able to effectively and efficiently implement their training to respond to the disaster. Following a major disaster, the public health department will likely be asked to respond to the disaster as many disasters involve risks to public health, for example, during a hurricane, drinking water may become contaminated, which will require the assistance of the health department in order to protect the public and ensure that the water is safe for consumption. If the public health department has not participated in a local, full-scale emergency management…show more content…
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a full-scale exercise incorporates a real time, high stress scenario with real people and equipment and coordination from other agencies to test several emergency functions and activates the emergency operations center (An Orientation to Community Disaster Exercises, 1995). Conducting tabletop or functional exercises may be useful; nevertheless, these exercises do not completely prepare agencies for an emergency because tabletop and functional exercises do not utilize the full-scale of employees, equipment, and other agencies in their participation. According to Biddinger, Savoia, Massin-Short, Preston, and Stoto, lack of participation in a full-scale exercise raises many concerns because "research has documented that preparedness exercise are effective in familiarizing personnel with emergency plans, allowing different agencies to practice working together, identifying shortcomings and gaps in emergency planning, allows for evaluation of specific, systems-level capabilities in preparedness, and can be used to evaluate the performance of individuals, specific agencies or the overall system" (Biddinger, Savoia, Massin-Short, Preston, & Stoto, 2010). Participation in a full-scale exercise can ensure that public health departments are adequately prepared to respond during a public health emergency; thus, ensuring efficient and effective treatment at the scene and reducing the risk to the

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