{"id":4766,"date":"2018-02-05T18:59:04","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T18:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abetteremergency.com\/blog\/?p=4766"},"modified":"2018-02-06T23:15:07","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T23:15:07","slug":"communication-is-key-to-learning-from-disaster-guest-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abetteremergency.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/communication-is-key-to-learning-from-disaster-guest-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Communication is Key to Learning from Disaster: Guest Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Challenge Healthcare Professionals Face<\/strong>
\nWhen an emergency event occurs, the normal process and patterns of our day are interrupted. Things that we take for granted such as inventory supply, patient flow, nursing assignments, and resource allocation are dramatically changed. How we react to that change will determine how we deliver on the mission of healthcare within our community: patient care.<\/p>\n

However, such events do not always occur with the same frequency throughout the country. And so, healthcare facilities in areas that do not experience devastating events with regularity must learn from after action reports generated by those facilities that do experience such events.<\/p>\n

I pulled these quotes from a 2015 report, Operational Lessons Learned in Disaster Response, published by the US Fire Administration that illustrate the problem:<\/p>\n

\u201cLearning the lessons learned and turning that into actionable behavior requires real effort at the individual level and for the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know the cause and effect of operational errors and omissions, the critiques\/reviews that follow report similar issues in disaster after disaster, and the lessons learned are so identified in the evaluations. As long as we fail to implement the knowledge of disaster response into training and operations, lessons learned will not be much more than a catch phrase.<\/strong> The best evidence for our failure to learn from past experience and lessons and the lessons of others comes in the testimony from after action reviews conducted after devastating events.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHonest self-evaluation by the organization is the most important first step, getting to the facts and recognizing what may be learned from the event. From evaluation flows the lessons learned. Now comes the critical piece: Will lessons learned be shelved or will they lead to organizational learning?<\/strong> That is the question. Implementation of lessons learned into organizational training and operations comes down to a question of leadership.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Leadership is Key<\/strong>
\nWe need leaders at all levels that have the courage to think \u201coutside of the box\u201d and can embrace such organizational learning. They should also have an all-hazards perspective in order for their staff to maintain a heightened level of preparedness.<\/p>\n

Next Generation Emergency Core Competencies: Behavioral Anchors for Measures and Objectives<\/em>, a report published by FEMA in 2017, identified the following behavioral anchors for leadership:<\/p>\n