Emergency management in health: key issues and challenges in the UK
The article selected is “Emergency management in health: key issues and challenges in the UK” by Lee et al. (2012). The study presents emergency management as only the practices and actions that relate to responding to the emergency situations. However, Lee et al relates emergency management to emergency planning and establishes that it includes a range of processes from training and preparedness, the business continuity management and planning, and emergency recovery. The article establishes that numerous questions are still unanswered like the ideal outline of emergency management systems or the techniques to catastrophe circumstances, which include top-down or bottom-up, flexible or standardized, proactive or reactive, generic versus specific planning. Presently, an association between the systems of emergency management, the practitioners, and the public seems imperfect. When it comes to the involvement of the public, Lee et al establishes that it is tokenistic and minimal, which is secured by the emergency management system and a disempowering culture. In addition, emergency management experiences challenges due to lack of a proper method of communication to the public.
The method used was qualitative through the use of semi-structured interviews with the main opinion leaders and stakeholders of emergency management that acted as the responders. Purposive sampling was utilized as the sampling strategy so as to attain diverse opinions from the multi-agency stakeholders. The results of the study established that there is a presence of diverse emergency management systems globally. It is evident that that we have the socio-political contextual specificity influencing the organizations, functions and efficiency of numerous systems of emergency management.
The pros of the research is that it attempts to recap the present gaps in identifying the way people often behave during emergency cases, both at the community, individual and organizational levels. There are expectations are usually made during the process of planning as to the way people respond are adequately grounded in the evidence base. The con of the article is that it only included the participants that were the current practitioners the emergency planning field. As a result, their opinions do not present a full reflection of the wider field of emergency management that also includes political views.
Selected Federal Emergency Planning Mandates
The article selected is “Federal Emergency Management: A Brief Introduction” by Lindsay (2012). According to the author, the nature of emergency management in America is decentralized and contextual involving numerous jurisdictions and a broad scope of federal agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector agencies. Generally, the emergency management starts on a local level with the federal government playing a crucial role when the state is requesting help. Accordingly, Lindsay (2012) establishes that the type and number of actors that are victimized by incidents vary greately based on the seriousness and context of the situation. Likewise, the legal framework where emergency management operates and the authorized processes is decentralized and is a factor of numerous federal authorities.
When dealing with emergency management, the operations of the federal government functions are grouped in stages: Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. Categorizing of the functions of emergency management is important for the classification and conceptualization of the activities. The federal government’s emergency management system in America is scalable. As such, it means that the local government requests help from state government if reacting or recovering from incidents past their ability (Lindsay, 2012). In situations where the state cannot adequately deal with the occurrence, the state governor might choose to request help from federal government. It can be concluded that scalability makes the emergency management reactions highly practical. In addition, it can be said that it includes a political aspect since it is entrenched in the federalist governing system meant to preserve the autonomy of the state.
The pros of the article are that it provides an in depth discussion of the local government’s role in emergency management through the examination of various Acts enacted, such as the Homeland Security Act and the different frameworks like National Disaster Recovery Framework that coordinates and allocates the roles and responsibilities to the entities that are involved in the disaster recovery. These frameworks accurately describe the role of federal government in emergency management. The article provides the different frameworks created by the local government in terms of emergency management. However, the con is that it does not adequately provide instances where these frameworks were used successfully, such as during different disasters that occurred in America like Hurricane Katrina.
Emergency Planning, Professionalism and the Future
The article “A scoping study of emergency planning and management in health care: What further research is needed?” by Boyd et al. (2012) is a report describing the scoping examination of the research and development requirements in relation to the health care emergency planning and management. The report draws on the learning and encounters from the regional, local, international and national contexts. The major objective is identifying the research areas, and to recognize the features of optimal practices that could be mutual. According to Boyd et al. (2012), the “all hazards” technique of emergency planning that is suggested the majority of sociologists, utilizes popular principles, systems and models for facilitating an optimal coordination and collaboration among such organizations. The article shows that the main foundation of emergency planning is the stage model of the pre-and post-incident activities that require being planned and managed.
The system of emergency planning requires being structured, and must include processes, governance and resources that allow it to create appropriate plans, and implementing the plans efficiently. As observed by the authors, emergency planning necessitates the capacity to implement preparedness task and constant of improvement through the regular drills and exercises. Basically, there should be a learning system associated with the emergency planning system.
The pro of the article is observed in the data extraction. All citations and the research project outlined in the article and considered relevant and were was categorized through the use of the multidimensional context with classes for: the region of catastrophe; the emergency stage; type of hazard; the method of research; and the element of preparedness. As a result, one could say that the structure accurately explains the emergency planning procedure. The con of the article is that it limits its research to emergency planning measures of the UK. It does not provide a general view of the importance of emergency planning that can be adopted by any nation. It only discusses the calamities that have occurred in the UK.
References
Boyd, A., Chambers, N., French, S., King, R., Shaw, D., & Whitehead, A. (2012). A scoping study of emergency planning and management in health care: What further research is needed? National Institute for Health Research.
Lee, A. C., Phillips, W., Challen, K., & Goodacre, S. (2012). Emergency management in health: key issues and challenges in the UK. BMC Public Health, 12(1). doi:10.1186/1471-2458-12-884
Lindsay, B. (2012). Federal Emergency Management: A Brief Introduction. Congressional Research Service.
