Healthcare Crisis Management Plan

This report outlines a crisis management plan for healthcare organizations, focusing on the NHS. It addresses various issues faced by healthcare organizations during crises, such as earthquakes or other emergencies. The report details the importance of effective resource management, including personnel and supplies. A crucial aspect is the establishment of a clear chain of command for efficient crisis response. The report also emphasizes the need for pre-crisis planning, training, and communication strategies to ensure patient safety and minimize disruption. The research methodology employed is qualitative, using a descriptive research design. Ethical considerations regarding data confidentiality are also discussed. The conclusion highlights the necessity of a robust crisis management plan for prompt and effective responses to emergencies.

HEALTH CARE

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................2
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.....................................................................................................4
Type of Investigation..............................................................................................................4
Research design......................................................................................................................4
Data sampling.........................................................................................................................4
Ethical Consideration.............................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

ABSTRACT
The current research paper aims to outline various kinds of issues that are being faced by
a healthcare organisation and how it can use its resources in an effective manner for the purpose
of managing a crisis situation. It has also laid down the various ways through which personal
management should take place, so that they will be trained enough to deal with situations of
crisis. A chain of command necessary for such crisis situations is also being discussed. The use
and management of supplies in hospital and crisis management is also mentioned in the research
paper.
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INTRODUCTION
Healthcare is an important aspect of every one’s life. It comes under the necessities of a
human being Therefore, health care is a constitutional right of every citizen and the same should
be given to individuals absolutely free of cost in the events of natural disasters like cyclone,
floods, earthquakes etc. The current research paper will try to outline a crisis management plan
for NHS. A healthcare organisation must be prepared for any sort of emergency situation that
may take place in the state (McClendon and Robinson, 2013). It can be hurricane, tornado or for
that matter a earthquake or act of terrorism. The organisation should be prepared for any medical
emergency to overcome this situation and best possible treatment can be given to the people who
get affected by this issue.
MAIN BODY
Emergency situation like earthquake can be a messy situation for the state administration.
Various kinds of arrangements have to be made by the government. But most importantly, the
priority is to evacuate the people who might have their life still in them. This all requires efforts
and collaboration from all the machinery of the government. Be it medical teams, police
administration or fire departments.
A crisis can hamper the proper functioning of an organisation, suddenly the crisis itself
becomes the priority and thus treatment to other needy patients is not possible. It is therefore
essential that right kind of policies and procedure are made for the purpose of managing the
crisis in the best possible way and to make sure that already in need patients gets less affected
due to the crisis. The available resources shall be managed diligently and this cannot be done in
the situation of crisis itself. Proper planning and training way before is essential to deal with
situations like this (Goldhaber-Fiebert and Howard, 2013)
In a situation like this, the most important task is to make a priority for various patients.
If a serious patient was already in the hospital, and crisis has led to a flood of patient in the
hospital, does not tantamount to a negligence of the other serious patients which were already
there. Therefore, NHS regularly issues advisory to all of its hospitals regarding the actions and
policies that need to be followed in a situation of crisis. Patients will go through triage, under
which their seriousness will be ascertained by a nurse and then they will be forwarded to the
concerned doctors. Priority will be given to incoming patients as they are facing the worst of
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injuries due to earthquake. The supply of necessary equipments shall be there in the hospital and
if not, proper arrangements for immediate delivery of those should be there. All personal’s
holiday or leaves can be cancelled by NHS, declaring emergency duties (Sadgrove, 2016).
The authoritative chain of command of crisis management plan will tend to flow from top
to bottom. It is essential that a crisis management team is made, which will monitor all the
aspects related to crisis, be it managing the subordinate team or communicating the issues and
situations with other family members of the victims, informing them about the current situation
of the patient (Boysen, 2013). All these things need to be managed on priority basis by the crisis
management team. The senior doctors will issue instructions to junior doctors and subordinates
working to improve the situations, the medications will also be prescribed only upon approval
from senior doctors in this regard.
The chain of command will appear like this for effective management of patients:
Incident Commander: He will be responsible for assessing the gravity of situation and issuing
instructions to junior personals.
Communication Officer: NHS will keep a communication officer in all of its hospitals, during
such emergency situations. The role of communication officer is to inform relatives of the
patients and take relevant outside information to be given to the crisis management team.
Medical team: The commander will have the authority to disburse team of various doctors on
particular emergencies, considering the gravity of situations (Geist and Hardesty, 2014).
In emergencies like an earthquake, the importance of co-ordination and communication
within the team increases a lot. Involvement is also needed from almost all the persons of the
team and the scope of negligence and mistake is very less. A right kind of communication should
be made with outer world as well. Because in crisis like earthquakes, the family members of
loved ones becomes distressed and informing them correctly about situation is highly essential.
The necessary policy for personnel management and their safety should be made. These
include giving them a higher pay for working overtime in crisis situations. They should be
managed well, if their availability during the crisis is looked by the manager. During the whole
process they should be provided with right kind of safety from various incidents. The safety
arrangements shall be there within most of the hospitals to ensure safety of individuals within the
organisation (Kraus and Rabin, 2012).
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It becomes important that the family members of the patients should be communicated by
the team from time to time, but sometimes it becomes difficult to give information on regular
basis, which may lead to outrage from people towards hospital administration, and thus NHS
allows its hospitals to immediately follow the procedure of lock down of hospitals for such
people, in order to ensure safety and security of its patients and personals (Langabeer and
Helton, 2015).
Some of the steps of supply chain management include:
Commitment and team building: It ensures commitment from senior people within organisation.
Ensuring proper arrival of supplies: The supplies should arrive at hospitals on time; any delay
can mean life of an individual.
Effective inventory mechanism: The inventory mechanism should be good enough, so that
supplies can be kept securely.
Use of supplies: The use of supplies should be communicated to the people working within the
organisation in an effective way. They shall be given training through programmes way before,
so that the same can be implemented effectively during crisis.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Type of Investigation
There are two main types of methods that can be used by the researcher; these are
qualitative method and quantitative method. For the purpose of this research, qualitative method
has been taken by the researcher to arrive at conclusion in a more effective way (Calfee, 2012).
Research design
It basically refers to the structure as well as the entire pattern of the project into
consideration. It consists methods, techniques of data accumulation, time for completion, cost
required, activities and more there are several types of research design used i.e. experimental,
exploratory and descriptive. In this order, present report will use descriptive methods for
analysing the data in detail.
Data sampling
A researcher cannot ask questions from the whole population, therefore a sample of
population is taken and on the basis of their answers, an opinion is framed which is regarded as
the opinion of whole population.
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Ethical Consideration
A researcher faces many problems as well as issue in conducting a research. This would
include that the research shall be conducted in the manner as envisaged, efficient use of the funds
allocated etc. He should make sure that the data obtained from respondents remains confidential
and the information obtained from such data should be used only for the specific purpose for
which it was obtained (Flin and O'Connor, 2017).
CONCLUSION
It is therefore essential to have a proper and effective crisis management place that will
enable an organisation to react promptly in a situation of crisis. The management of patients and
choosing priorities for each of them will enable a better management of crisis like earthquakes
etc. It is also equally important to implement the best possible plans and giving the personal
necessary training way before, so that crisis management can be done fluently. The organisation
should conduct necessary training as well as development programmes to overcome these issues
in an effective way.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Arnaboldi, M., Lapsley, I. and Steccolini, I., 2015. Performance management in the public
sector: The ultimate challenge. Financial Accountability & Management. 31(1). pp.1-
22.
Boysen, P.G., 2013. Just culture: a foundation for balanced accountability and patient safety. The
Ochsner Journal. 13(3). pp.400-406.
Calfee, D.P., 2012. Crisis in hospital-acquired, healthcare-associated infections. Annual review
of medicine. 63. pp.359-371.
Flin, R. and O'Connor, P., 2017. Safety at the sharp end: a guide to non-technical skills. CRC
Press.
Geist, P. and Hardesty, M., 2014. Negotiating the crisis: DRGs and the transformation of
hospitals. Routledge.
Goldhaber-Fiebert, S.N. and Howard, S.K., 2013. Implementing emergency manuals: can
cognitive aids help translate best practices for patient care during acute events?.
Anesthesia & Analgesia. 117(5). pp.1149-1161.
Kraus, S.S. and Rabin, L.A., 2012. Sleep America: managing the crisis of adult chronic insomnia
and associated conditions. Journal of affective disorders. 138(3). pp.192-212.
Langabeer, J.R. and Helton, J., 2015. Health care operations management. Jones & Bartlett
Publishers.
McClendon, S. and Robinson, A.C., 2013. Leveraging geospatially-oriented social media
communications in disaster response. International Journal of Information Systems for
Crisis Response and Management (IJISCRAM). 5(1). pp.22-40.
Sadgrove, K., 2016. The complete guide to business risk management. Routledge.
Simon, R.W. and Canacari, E.G., 2012. A practical guide to applying lean tools and management
principles to health care improvement projects. AORN journal. 95(1). pp.85-103.
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