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Five Phases of Emergency Management

The Preparedness iot Cycle is an essential tool for organizations that are composed of five stages commonly known as Phases. There are a total of Five Phases which are, Mitigation, Preparedness, Prevention, Response, and Recovery. These phrases describe a continuous cycle of planning, organizing, training, equipping, exercising, and evaluating emergency preparedness activities and allow organizations to increase their overall effort, capability, Augmented Reality Lab, and resiliency to experience and recover from any type of disaster. The Preparedness Cycle aids organizations to create organization-wide strategies and techniques (crucial for the well-being of the people) so that they are prepared for any type of disaster, manmade or otherwise well ahead of time. Not all disasters can be thwarted but through proactive planning efforts, the Preparedness Cycle can be an effective means to plan and mitigate the risk of life and loss during a disaster.

 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) established wide-ranging emergency preparedness requirements in 2017. For 17 distinct healthcare providers including hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health providers, PACE Programs, Federally Qualified Health Centers, and many more. These potent program provisions allow all providers to equip themselves for potential natural, physical or biological disasters, and complete emergency preparedness exercises together, cyber security using the exact nomenclature and emergency management best practices that FEMA and State officials use and recommend.

 

The Preparedness Cycle elements include:

 

1. Mitigation activities allow organizations to reduce loss of life and physical assets such as buildings and supplies that will lessen the overall effect of the disaster on an organization and the community as a whole.

2. Prevention focuses on creating concrete plans, training, and exercises well ahead of a disaster to prepare your organization. Emergency planning activities will allow organizations to reduce loss of life and sustain environmental challenges by developing organizational-specific plans, standardized planning tools, and emergency management protocols.

3. Preparedness is a continuous cycle of activities such as emergency planning, staff training, exercising, assessment, and remedial actions. Preparedness and readiness go hand in hand as organizations and communities prepare for disaster.

4. Response is how organizations respond to whatever challenges disasters bring such as supply chain interruptions, changes in service delivery, or daily routine staffing. As organizations respond to disaster, they must use all their emergency preparedness tools such as emergency plans, policies and procedures, and staff training to respond to any type of disaster.

5. Recovery focuses on restoring critical business functions to stabilize daily rotational services and increase capacity to continue to serve their community after a disaster. The recovery phase allows organizations to return to normal service levels as soon as possible.

 

Other Emergency Preparedness Strategies Include:

 

  • Emergency Preparedness activities should be carried out on a year-round basis. 
  • Emergency Preparedness is a continuous cycle of process improvement
  • It is critical to document gaps in your emergency preparedness capacity so improvements can be made to your systems
  • It’s important to “calendar” emergency services preparedness activities so that they are regularly scheduled throughout the year.
  • Emergency Preparedness activities drive the preparedness cycle

 

Crisis Management Process

The crisis management process involves much more than managing the crisis itself — although that's arguably the most important part. Let's unpack the primary steps in the crisis management process so your team and crisis leaders can be best prepared.

1. Pre-Crisis

The first part of crisis management is preventing any potential crises. This involves creating a crisis management plan (which we'll talk about next), hiring and training your crisis management team (we dive into this later, too), and conducting practice exercises for implementing your plan. Another part of this step is drafting any crisis communication messages you may have to relay in times of crisis — pre-writing these messages saves time when an emergency happens.

 

2. Crisis Management and Response

The second step in the crisis management process is likely what you consider when you think of crisis management — the process of dealing with and responding to the different stages of a crisis (which we'll unpack below).

This stage is when your crisis management plan is put into action. Initial crisis management messages are released, employees and stakeholders and contacted, and public and company safety is prioritized (more than normal).

 

3. Post-Crisis

When a crisis passes or subsides, your crisis management work is hardly finished. You must remain in contact with your employees, customers, and stakeholders and remain available to answer questions. It's also best practice to send proactive updates to these parties.

Finally, work with your crisis management team to review and analyze your crisis management plan and how it played out during a real emergency. How did your crisis communications perform? Did your audiences have any lingering questions or concerns that you neglected to answer? Integrate any lessons you learn into your crisis management process for future planning.

Contact Six Industries Inc today to get started.

 

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