Public Health Crisis: The Need for Emergency Response Teams - Paper Example

Public health and emerging response teams have become essential concepts in government functions towards disaster management. Notably, many outbreaks of various diseases in the globe are a clear indication of the need for more complex emergency teams. The elements of disaster management include preparedness, mitigations, response, and recovery. Public health prefers functional integrations to discover the courses of the health crisis in order to look for better solutions to the threats affecting victims and responders. Therefore, this article seeks to discuss health security issues, threats to responders during disaster management, and preventive measures to these threats.

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Most health emergency management systems and national governments have lacked the capacity to respond to the crises. The concept of capacity or faculty in response to health issues is based on the flexibility of resource allocation. This allocation can be done through regional networks or government administrative offices (Laegreid, 2019). For instance, the national government can distribute vaccines and antibiotics to health centers in prior. This early distribution of resources enhances accountability and enough time for health workers to prepare themselves to fight the disaster.

Besides, competency in preparedness for emergency response is necessary for better knowledge and the ability to conduct assigned responsibilities effectively. Most of the local organizations responsible for disaster management have experienced competency as a threat. However, the U.S center for disease control deployed various competence measures to prevent diseases spread (Rao, 2020). Subsequently, public health should describe defining their role in emergency response. Besides, the response team should identify their agency plans towards the emergency response. Besides, all public health should describe the proper communication method they intend to use in case of emergency. Competency also involves the identification of any possible emergency that may occur. This element can help in creating proper methods of solving the crises in society.

Consequently, coordination in public health has increased the degree of programs and policies in emergency management organizations. Most agencies lack this ability to coordinate the activities they should conduct during the disaster management process (Ghomian, 2017). Therefore, public health should conduct extensive interaction with the agencies and learn on ways of sharing resources among various organizations. Extent interaction refers to the number of contacts experienced among the agencies (Ghomian, 2017). The response team should articulate formalities and concerns to documentations regarding disaster management. Notably, any organized organization is always successful in its objectives. Therefore, coordination would ensure even distribution of resources.

Subsequently, an emergency operation plan has deployed formal documentation of the roles of individuals within an organization. Most disaster-related organizations lack such plans, but this can cost them since the individuals in such organizations lack specific responsibilities to perform (Ghomian, 2017). However, planning is necessary for assigning tasks to describe authority relationships with other organizations, identify steps of mitigation and recovery (Ghomian, 2017). Alongside, the operation plan may provide details about the location of the command center or emergency center of operation. Thus, the operation plan enhances ease in response to disasters and saves time.

Alongside the significant threat that results in the evolvement and spread of most diseases is globalization. Globalization is the social, economic, and political process of integrating the national system into a single global system (Rao, 2020). Notably, transport issues have increased the spread of communicable diseases in various areas. This makes it difficult to control or prevent such diseases (Rao, 2020). Therefore, the national disaster management team becomes interdependent on the response of other national systems. To control such outbreaks and spreads, the response team should be widely spread I every geographical area.

Subsequently, surveillance should be among the factors to consider while forecasting health matters. Many disaster management organizations have failed to detect changes in disease patterns in various communities. However, those agencies need to use formal methods in conducting researches about outbreaks of unknown diseases (Laegreid, 2019). Besides, a threat of bioterrorism has led some health organizations to record patients' complaints through an integrated database (Laegreid, 2019). Monitoring of patients is required surveillance techniques to perform adequate investigations about the pandemic. Therefore, it is essential for public health and national government to support surveillance on new diseases for more effective handling of such disasters.

Most of disaster management teams lack enough training and exercises. These aspects are very critical issues and bring more threats to the responders of disasters. Subsequently, there is a need for improvement of skills among agencies. Exercising is essential in enhancing opportunities for valid logistics in organization operations (Rao, 2020). For instance, training or exercising involved are based on history hence provides a better approach in dealing with disasters. Consequently, participants may discover the best approaches used in past sequences to solve the crisis (Rao, 2020). The scenario-based method can be integrated into the database, hence easy to trail through the study. Therefore, public health should enhance simulation and field exercise to develop more skills.

In conclusion, the paper discussed various health securities response during disasters. Just to mention, the paper provided solutions for the threats that hinder the management of disasters. For instance, capacity, competency, coordination, emergency operation plan, and surveillance are ways to enhance disaster solutions effectively. Therefore, this paper recommends public health to consider such elements while solving emergencies.

References

Ghomian, Z., & Yousefian, S. (2017). Natural Disasters in the Middle-East and North Africa With a Focus on Iran: 1900 to 2015. Health In Emergencies And Disasters Quarterly, 2(2), 53. https://doi.org/10.18869/nrip.hdq.2.2.53

Laegreid, P., & Neby, S. (2019). Gaming, Accountability, and Trust: DRGs and Activity-Based Funding in Norway. Financial Accountability & Management, 32(1), 57.

Rao, P., Rao, K., & Kubo, S. (2020). Proceedings of International Conference on Remote Sensing for Disaster Management (p. 23).