Personnel Roles and functions for Disaster Preparedness and

responses Plans
Introduction
The purpose of disaster preparedness and management in any community and in any
healthcare facility is to maintain a safe environment and continue to provide essential services
while responding to disruptions caused by an emergency. This is true whether the event is result
of something internal to the institution (e.g., fire, building collapse), external to the institution
(e.g., flood, explosion, disease, power outage), or a combination. Disaster management includes
preparedness/ risk assessment, prevention, mitigation, response, recovery and evaluation.
Effective planning is the first and arguably the most important elements of disaster
management. Strong leadership is required to mobilize and focus the organization’s energy and
essential elements for success are system capacities that support the delivery of expected
services; staff members and volunteers who are competent in their disaster response roles; a
clearly defined, executable, and practiced disaster plan; and strong preexisting partnerships
with collaborating organizations and agencies.

Incident Commander

 The decision maker when an incident strikes. They create the incident action plan, which
is crucial for controlling incidents quickly once they occur. When an emergency occurs,
you call 911 and wait for first responders to arrive. First responders usually composed of
firefighters, police, EMTs and paramedics. These individuals are trained to tackle
emergencies- all while staying calm and collected.
 This person’s priority is to guide an incident to its resolution as quickly and completely as
possible, managing the resources, plan, and communication involved in that resolution
since they are the first one who can assess the scene immediately. As an incident
commander, you’ll spend most of your time preparing for incidents, learning from past
incidents, and managing an incident once it occurs.
 Primary point of contact and source of truth about your incident. They see the big
picture, manage all the moving pieces, know what’s been tried and what’s still on the
radar, and plan for and manage next steps.
 Without an incident commander, communication and team work break down. It’s easy
for teams to do duplicate work without knowing it, miss big picture concerns, and fail to
communicate quickly and accurately with system users, internal stakeholders, leadership
and each other.