Paper Example Implementation of the Proposed Risk Management Plan

Implementation of a risk management plan for the City of New York will consist of action-specific policies and guidelines necessary to mitigate the pandemic, resource allocation, provision of excellent care services, and the appropriate use of social media to disseminate information. Given that the COVID-19 pandemic caught the global healthcare system unprepared, leading to high infection rates that almost overrun the system, it is indispensable for municipalities, especially NYC to have a strong risk management program to minimize the effects of future pandemics.

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Firstly, in the case of a disease outbreak, the City of New York should enforce emergency risk management (ERM) policies such as declaring a public health emergency based on a comprehensive risk assessment. Additionally, it should also issue guidelines that outline various emergency management structures within the health department. It should also articulate the precise rights, roles, and obligations of distinct organizations during the pandemic. Notably, the guidelines issued should be consistent with international conventions and standards such as the WHO guidelines. For example, when the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, many countries and implemented policies such as lockdowns, cessation of movement, and school closures depending on the level of their disease severity. In this case, when an outbreak occurs, NYC can issue guidelines such as lockdowns, social distancing, school closures, and contagions depending on the threat level.

Secondly, resource planning is essential in the implementation of any risk management plan. Notably, it is concerned with the allocation of material and human resources to various sectors necessary in combating a pandemic (Schryen & Rauchecker, 2015). On one hand, human resources will include doctors, infectious disease nurses, pediatricians, and coroners among other key service providers in the health industry. The city’s health department should outline the specific responsibilities, roles, and authorities for each responder according to international conventions. Moreover, during outbreaks, the health department can partner with various health coalitions within the private sector to enhance the outcomes of the mitigation plans. On the other hand, material resource allocation ensures that the responders have adequate tools and equipment necessary not only reducing the spread of the pandemic but also safeguarding their health. At this stage, the city should finance different health organizations to facilitate human resource and material acquisition. For example, health responders should be issued with personal protective equipment, clinical assessment tools, and medical supplies. Moreover, the department of health should have adequate facilities to accommodate patients such as isolation and quarantine centers and intensive care units and appropriate logistics such as helicopters and ambulances.

Thirdly, implementation of the risk management plan will include the provision of excellent health services to mitigate the effects of pandemics. At this stage, the department of health should work in coordination with the national or international standards to implement best practices aimed at slowing or curing those infected by the disease. The WHO and the Ministry of Health are key partners in supplementing the city’s health systems with evidence-based practices necessary at each stage of the pandemic. Fourthly, review and evaluation of the results following the enaction of different measures should be conducted extensively at each phase to help stakeholders in decision making.

Fifthly, communication is a critical element of risk management. The department of health should ensure that all information disseminated to responders is authentic and verified. Therefore, the use of social media techniques should be scrutinized to ensure that the public and health responders are exposed to accurate and authentic information. the authorities should also have verified social media platforms where people can access the information. Notably, advanced health information technologies can be used to assist medical responders in medical planning and clinical assessments.

Competencies Required

The emergency management staff should be conversant with resource planning and management. According to Schryen and Rauchecker (2013), allocating scarce resources during an emergency, where decisions need to be made within short durations can be challenging. Therefore, the responding staff should have adequate knowledge on the use of optimization models such as sharing to deduce solutions that produce overall positive effects. Secondly, the ability to use sophisticated technology and informatics is essential in disaster relief to facilitate information sharing and communication (Bjerge, et al., 2015). In this case, the responding staff should be capable of using various databases to facilitate coordination of the disaster (Bjerge, et al., 2015). The staff should be able to facilitate stakeholder engagement throughout the emergency period. According to Walsh et al. (2015), stakeholder engagement is the most prevalent challenge in emergency management as communication and involvement amongst responding entities is halted. In this scenario, the responders should be capable of maintaining effective communication across all stakeholders such as the public, government, and the private health sector.

Performance Gaps

Noticeably, each emergency has its unique challenges that require specific skills, attitudes, knowledge, and experiences for effective performance. Based on the COVID-19 response experience, potential performance gaps in resource planning, information dissemination, staffing, and technical competence are likely to affect similar instances in the future (Roos et al., 2017). During resource planning, key decision-makers such as health ministers and hospital heads may face challenges in the allocation and utilization of funds, acquisition of critical materials, and staffing (Walsh et al., 2015). Resource allocation requires critical management skills such as discernment and optimization. Additionally, coordination officers require adequate knowledge on how to request funds and seek finances from other financial leaders in the country. Such leadership skills require to be developed to assist in enhancing the smoothing running of risk mitigation activities. Additionally, practitioners who will respond to the emergency require skills such as the use of the evidence-based practice to link interventions to performance. The success of a pandemic response depends on a practitioner’s ability to implement best practices, while under pressure to enhance better outcomes (Xhafa et al., 2011). Skills such as communication and engagement are necessary to keep stakeholders at per with developments at ground zero (Walsh et al., 2015).

Interventions to Bridge the Gap

Training and development of emergency staff is the primary intervention to bridge the knowledge gap to enhance performance (Salas et al., 2008; Aguinis & Kraiger, 2009). Training should be done across all levels of an emergency management framework to ensure that people match competencies to anticipated goals. Leaders should be trained on engagement, financial management, risk assessment, decision-making, and discernment to enhance their coordination skills during an emergency response. According to Lin et al. (2015), risk assessment is a crucial factor in disaster management since it promotes better decision-making among leaders and responding practitioners. Through risk assessment training, responders can learn how, when, and where to apply various practices and actions, enhancing mitigation efforts (Lin et al., 2015). Notably, training can be done by enrolling personnel in various business courses and academic programs where they get a certification.

Additionally, experience and practice are excellent interventions in building practitioner knowledge and skills. Knowledge and competencies concerning how to allocate and optimize scarce resources, make risk-based decisions, apply best practices in dealing with infectious diseases, and communicate can be obtained through coaching and mentorship or job shadowing programs (Frankel et al., 2005). The intervention allows mentors to guide their apprentices and provide them with continuous feedback on their performance. Coaching and mentorship will be useful for medical practitioners since they can acquire the necessary clinal competencies from real-life experience (Walsh et al., 2015).

References

Lin, L., Nilsson, A., Sjolin, J., Abrahamsson, M., & Telhler, H. (2015). On the perceived usefulness of risk descriptions for decision-making in disaster risk management. Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 142, pp. 48-55.

Schryen, G., & Rauchecker, G. (2015). Resource planning in disaster response. Bus Inf Syst Eng, 57(4), pp. 243-259.

Bjerge, B., Clark, N., Fisker, P., Raju, E., (2016). Technology and information sharing in disaster relief. PLoS ONE, 11(9), pp. 1-20.

Walsh, L., Craddock, H., Gulley, K., Strauss-Riggs, K., & Schor, W. K. (2015). Building health care system capacity to respond to disasters: Successes and challenges of disaster preparedness health care coalitions. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, 30(2), pp. 113-122.

Frankel, H. L., Crede, W. B., Topal, J. E., Roumanis, S. A., Devlin, M. W., & Foley, A. B. (2005). Use of corporate Six Sigma performance-improvement strategies to reduce the incidence of catheter-related bloodstream infections in a surgical ICU. Journal of the American College of Surgeons, 201(3), 349-358. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jamcollsurg.2005.04.027

Xhafa, F., Asimakopoulou, E., Bessis, N., Barolli, L., & Takizawa, M. (2011). An event-based approach to supporting team coordination and decision-making in disaster management scenarios. In 2011 Third International Conference on Intelligent Networking and Collaborative Systems (pp. 741-745). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6132902

Aguinis, H., & Kraiger, K. (2009). Benefits of training and development for individuals and teams, organizations, and society. Annual review of psychology, 60, 451-474. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163505

Salas, E., Diaz-Granados, D., Klein, C., Burke, C. S., Stagl, K. C., Goodwin, G. F., & Halpin, S. M. (2008). Does team training improve team performance? A meta-analysis. Human Factors, 50(6), 903-933. https://doi.org/10.1518/001872008X375009

Roos, M. M., Hartmann, T. T., Spit, T. T., & Johann, G. G. (2017). Constructing Risks–Internalisation of Flood Risks in the Flood Risk Management Plan. Environmental Science & Policy, 74, 23-29.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1462901116304658