Discussion: Public Health Emergencies Systems
Discussion: Public Health Emergencies Systems
Question Description
Incident Management System for Public Health Emergencies
Overview
At this point in your education, everybody should be intimately familiar with the incident management system. One of the major faults of an otherwise widely accepted and practiced concept is that ICS does not address incidents which have as their root cause or primary outcome public health and/or medical focus. Yes, ICS has an operations sector which includes the treatment of patients and a logistics function which includes the care of emergency responders, but this is generally insufficient for incidents with large numbers of patients. What happens when the disaster incident is 10,000 patients with the plague and your city has to establish an incident management team to handle the consequences? Do you ask the fire chief to provide all the deputies and assistants?
Most, if not all, of you have neither seen nor heard of the Medical and Health Incident Management System (MaHIM). This is a system well ahead of its time that was developed by the physician who trained Dr Jaslow and those he works with in Washington, DC. For those of you who always wondered how in the heck you would ever manage an incident that lives primarily in the medical sector, here is your golden egg. Enjoy! One word of warning: this is a functional system for incident management, not an organizational chart of position descriptions. Do you know the difference?
Required Reading
1. Joseph Barbera, et al. Medical and Health Incident Management System.MaHIM.pdf
http://www.gwu.edu/~icdrm/publications/MaHIM%20V2%20final%20report%20sec%202.pdf
2. Joseph Barbera et al. Graphic display of MaHIM.MaHIM poster.pdf
3. Public Health ICS (for public health departments) Public Health ICS structure
The following link will assist you in gaining better knowledge of the Hospital ICS.
Powerpoint
MaHIM appears complicated but it mirrors the standard ICS matrix in terms of its design. There are five sectors: Command, Operations, Logistics, Planning and Admin/Finance. However, the system is not actually a roadmap for assigning persons to perform tasks. Rather, it is a map whose purpose is to remind an incident manager of all the tasks which much be accomplished during a complex health emergency and it groups those tasks into functional sectors.
Assignment: Read both MaHIM and the Public Health ICS document. Create 15 Powerpoint slides discussing: (1) the difference between MaHIM and the public health ICS, (2) the major functional subgroups contained within the sector of your choosing (Admin/Finance), (3) critical actions for the first 24 hours of an incident from the public health perspective (category 5 hurricane in Miami).
Remember to describe your answer in terms of public health emergencies, not fire-rescue incident types.
APA Style.
Tips for a good PowerPoint presentation: You will be graded not only on the content but also the visual appeal and general effectiveness of your presentation in conveying the content.
Slides should have no more than 4-6 lines of text per slide, and 1-3 ideas per slide max. Text should be in bullet format, not paragraph/prose format. Information should be conveyed in a concise but comprehensible manner. Do not write too much, as this creates a crowded slide which is visually overwhelming. Your meaning will get lost in the slide and your audience will lose interest. Do not write too little as this makes it difficult to understand your intended meaning. You may receive a lower grade because it will not be clear that you understood the concepts. Use photos and diagrams thoughtfully to supplement and advance your presentations, not just as meaningless filler.
Each presentation should have a title slide, an objective slide and one or more reference slides. The title slide should contain the title of your presentation, your full name, the date and DMM-643. The objectives slide should outline the main bullet points that your presentation will cover. These should be analogous to lessons you expect your intended target audience to learn from your presentations. Your target audience has a basic disaster management background equivalent to your own. You do not need to include background material such as the history of ICS in your presentation.
The number of slides will be assigned for each presentation. The student may go above that number by 2-3 slides but may not go below the assigned number. The assigned number of slides does NOT INCLUDE the title, objectives or reference slides. It also will not include slides with pictures or diagrams unless those slides substantively advance the presentation. This means that if this were a live presentation you would spend at least one minute discussing that picture/diagram. If you use photos or other multimedia in your presentation and it is not your own work (i.e., you took it from the internet) you MUST reference it on the slide (as opposed to the references slide at the end.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS
Discussion Questions (DQ)
Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation
Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality
Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes
I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
Discussion: Public Health Emergencies Systems