During an incident, emergency managers need to deploy materials, supplies, technologies, and people to the emergency site as quickly and efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, getting resources to the right place at the right time is only half the battle.
Topics: Emergency Management, Emergency Task Management, Emergency Response, Emergency Management Newsletter
AIIMS is the Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System. The nationally recognized incident management structure in Australia, AIIMS has wide command, control, and coordination applicability in fire, land management, and other emergency situations, as well as for non-emergency incidents.
Topics: Emergency Management, Incident Management, Emergency Task Management, Emergency Response
If you’re involved in emergency management in the U.S., you’ve probably heard of the Incident Command System (ICS). A key feature of the U.S. National Incident Management System (NIMS), ICS is an operational incident management structure that provides a standardized approach to the command, control, and coordination of emergency response in the U.S.
Topics: Emergency Management, Emergency Task Management, Emergency Response
Been managing volunteers, especially disaster response volunteers, for the last few decades? Then, you’ve probably noticed a shift. There’re fewer long-term volunteers; new volunteers are harder to come by than ever; and your base of existing volunteers is serving historically short stints.
Topics: Emergency Management, Public Safety, Emergency Task Management, Emergency Response, Resource Management
By now, the case for interoperability, especially the efficient transfer of relevant data between agencies – otherwise known as interoperability in information management – is clear. Just take a look at many post-emergency, after-action reports; most cite a lack of interagency cooperation as contributory to mission setbacks, or even failures. Of course, one of the best examples in recent memory: poor interagency cooperation between New York City responders during 11 September.
Topics: Emergency Management, Public Safety, Emergency Task Management, Emergency Response, Resource Management
Resources and capabilities go hand in hand. Your team’s capabilities prove the crucial variable to success in the field. In other words, managing one (resources) without considering the other (capabilities) is a surefire way to undermine the success of your mission.
Topics: Emergency Management, Public Safety, Emergency Task Management, Emergency Response, Resource Management
To be successful, incident managers need to get materials, supplies, technologies, and especially responders to the emergency site as quickly and efficiently as possible. But those same managers will tell you that getting resources to the right place at the right time is only half the battle. Attention also needs to be paid to ensuring the productivity of those resources once they reach the disaster. Here, however, managers and dispatchers confront capability roadblocks to effective resource management.
Topics: Emergency Management, White Paper, Incident Management, Emergency Task Management, Emergency Response, Resource Management
When it comes to incident and emergency response, effectively managing resources couldn’t be more important. Resources, i.e. materials, supplies, facilities, technologies, even people, are assets in every sense of the word. But they don’t get the job done in isolation. That’s where capabilities come in.
Topics: Emergency Management, Emergency Task Management, Emergency Response, Resource Management
Emergencies happen suddenly. They flare up, instantly posing a threat to life, critical infrastructure, and the environment at large. And once they get going, they don’t stay static. Emergencies are highly fluid events by definition.
If you take a bird’s eye view, the state of volunteerism seems pretty healthy. The volunteer rate in the U.S., for instance, stands at around 63 million people, roughly a quarter of the total population. And that’s only a few basis points down from the 29 percent that government statisticians recorded when they first started tracking rates of volunteerism back in the early 2000s. The importance of those volunteers to the health of the economy (not to mention the mission of their nonprofit organizations) can’t be overstated either. Some estimates show that volunteers contribute upwards of $150 billion in services.
Photo by MONUSCO/Sylvain Liechti [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Topics: Emergency Management, Emergency Task Management, Emergency Response, Resource Management
