At health care institutions that have a full time emergency manager he/she is the individual responsible for the administration of the Emergency Management Chapter in the Joint Commission standards. Unfortunately most institutions add these responsibilities on to a person that has emergency manager as just one of many hats in its organization, but we will focus on the former not the later in this post today.
Principally, my role is to ensure that my organization is ready to respond to a disaster both external and internal. This encompasses all four of the phases of emergency management (mitigation, preparedness, response, & recovery) and then some. This is traditionally accomplished through Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs), policies, and procedures followed by education and training among other things. It also means most emergency managers in this setting are responsible for continuity of operations. Now, ‘traditional emergency managers’ are coordinators and facilitators during incidents, in the health care realm emergency managers are integrated into the operations and tactics of a response. The level of an emergency managers integration into operations and tactics is usually inversely proportionate to the size of the organization.
Now external to a health care emergency manager finds himself in an interesting world, a mix between private and public sector or civilian and first responder. These paradigms can either be seen as either a challenge or the best of both worlds. A successful health care emergency manager can maximize both worlds where relationship management is key. This leads to the incorporation of health care systems into overall disaster response in the community. There are some that think hospitals don’t need a seat at the planning (aka funding) table but every year these numbers get smaller and smaller.
So there, 30 seconds about the role hospital / health care emergency managers. Remember this is just a primer, more to come in the coming posts.
