Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
What mechanism ensures that such poli-
cies are always kept up to date? For
example, does the Command Center have
access to compliance policies with respect
to the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPAA) that describe
how to respond to inquiries seeking infor-
mation regarding the location and condi-
tion of missing persons who may be
patients?
5. Can the Command Center be moved if circum-
stances require such action?
6. Is the Command Center scalable?
a. Is it in a single room, or is it in a location
that can be expanded?
b. Is the location accessible to the senior
management team?
c. If the Command Center needs to be
expanded, has the institution determined
an alternate location? Is that alternate loca-
tion connected to the emergency generator
system?
d. Is the Command Center (or alternate loca-
tion) capable of accommodating multiple
people who are working multiple phones
and computers simultaneously for easy and
immediate communication among the ICS
officers and Section Chiefs?
e. Is it close to—but separate from—a
personnel staging area, so that the Incident
Commander and the Operations Section
Chief may easily assign people awaiting
instruction, without having these people
crowd into the Command Center?
7. Does the Command Center include easy access
to community and affiliate resources, including
all necessary contact information?
response to the emergency. In an institution that
implements a classic ICS structure, the commander
role may be filled by almost anyone in the institu-
tion who identifies and announces the emergency
until such time as someone in an administra-
tive chain of command superior to that person
takes over the role of Incident Commander. 16 In
a HEICS system, the role of Incident Commander
may be filled by individuals who have pre-
assigned roles that will automatically slot into the
command structure. For example, the organiza-
tion's chief operating officer may automatically
assume command for a hospital-wide emergency;
by contrast, the Chief of Engineering may assume
command for responding to a broken pipe that
floods the hospital's data center. Regardless of
whether the Incident Commander is in the insti-
tution's organization chart, she is responsible
for
the response until
relieved or
the emer-
gency ends.
1. Does the institution's emergency plan call
for the implementation of an ICS or HEICS
system?
2.
If it is an ICS system, are all the potential indi-
viduals who may declare a disaster and assume
command aware of their potential authority?
a. Are they trained in the emergency manage-
ment plan?
b. Do they understand how they may be
relieved of responsibility?
3.
If an institution uses a HEICS system, are the
individuals who may assume command as a
result of their roles within the organization
aware of their roles and their responsibilities
in an emergency? Could the designation of
the Incident Commander change, based on the
nature of an emergency?
4.
If the organization uses a HEICS structure (or
other modified ICS structure that preassigns
individuals to roles in the incident command
structure), is the structure regularly reviewed
C. Incident Commander
The Incident Commander is the individual who
assumes overall authority for
the institution's
16 A classic incident-command response may require an individual who is above the Incident Commander in the organization's
standard organization chart to either assume command or become a direct report to the Incident Commander.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search