The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration (VHA), is pleased to announce the release of a compendium titled, “Emergency Management:  Principles and Practices for Healthcare Systems.”  The texts were developed by the Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management at The George Washington University, under contract to the VHA.  The contract called for the identification and validation of emergency response and recovery competencies for four job groups within health care organizations and the development of a curriculum that addressed emergency management program concepts and practices, incident management systems and processes, and organizational learning strategies. 

Competency-based instructional materials are increasingly recognized as relevant and important to emergency management, as they provide a formal approach to establishing adequate preparedness of an organization’s personnel. The curriculum strives to enhance management expertise within healthcare organizations to operate effectively as both individual resources and as integrated participants in the larger emergency response community.  A central focus is on organizational resiliency to ensure healthcare services continue despite hazard impact and to achieve the needed medical surge for incident victims. 

These texts are designed to compliment and support several important requirements and systems:

• The National Incident Management System (NIMS) compliance requirements for U.S. health care organizations;
• The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)  benchmarks for bioterrorism preparedness;
• The “Hospital Incident Command System (HICS)“ (previous versions were called the Hospital Emergency Incident Command System); and
• The roles individual health care institutions play in the public health and medical service function of local, State and National emergency operations plans.

The content is in the public domain and is intended to be integrated into and delivered through web-based, satellite and face-to-face training courses.  This knowledge, combined with active participation in emergency management education, training exercises, and organizational learning opportunities, can help to ensure U.S. health care facilities will be safer and more effective providers of world class services to the general public during emergencies.   

• Unit 1: The Emergency Management Program
• Unit 2: Incident Command System
• Unit 3: Healthcare System Emergency Response and Recovery
• Unit 4: Emergency Management Instruction, System Evaluation and Organizational Learning
• Unit 5: Appendices (Glossary and Acronyms)
• Health Care System Emergency Management Competency Framework
• Recommendations for Health Care System Emergency Management Certification Program

8-Hour Awareness-level Course Materials

• Agenda
• Course Introduction
• Lesson 1
       Lesson 1 Handout
• Lesson 2
       Lesson 2 Handout
• Lesson 3
       Lesson 3 Handout
  
• Lesson 4
       Lesson 4 Handout
  
• Lesson 5
       Lesson 5 Handout
  
• Lesson 6
       Lesson 6 Handout
  
• Lesson 7
       Lesson 7 Handout
  
• Lesson 8
       Lesson 8 Handout
  
• Lesson 9
       Lesson 9 Handout
  
• Lesson 10
       Lesson 10 Handout
  
• Lesson 11
       Lesson 11 Handout

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