Preparing the health services for emergencies
massey-university
Fri May 04 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Preparing the health services for emergencies
Friday, 4 May 2007, 11:43 am
Press Release: Massey University
Friday, May 4, 2007
Preparing the health services for emergency management
Health services deal with routine crises every day, but little is known about how they would perform in a major emergency such as an influenza pandemic.
PhD student Debra Ellis will study how staff at the Auckland District Health Board cope during a national influenza pandemic exercise this month.
Exercise Cruickshank is led by the Ministry of Health and involves 30 government agencies. It is designed to test the New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Action Plan.
Ms Ellis says health services play a significant role in the response and recovery phases of disasters, but little is known about how well they will perform in a major emergency.
“In contrast to the health problems they deal with every day, major hazard events pose considerable demands on health care staff and organisations.
“Research in this area is normally constrained by the lack of an event that can be used to assess readiness. Exercise Cruickshank will be a real time, long-duration pandemic influenza simulation that will provide the right context to assess readiness in the health services.”
The Ministry of Health report on Exercise Cruickshank will identify any gaps in the planning systems and process of health sector preparedness as a whole, while Ms Ellis’ research will focus on readiness at the individual, team and organisational level.
She will identify staff training and organisational needs.
“I want to know the best ways to sustain staff well-being and performance during prolonged health or natural hazard crises,” she says.
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Ms Ellis is a student at the Centre for Disaster Research, part of the School of Psychology on the Wellington campus.
In 2006 the University and GNS Science opened the joint Centre for Disaster Research to better prepare New Zealand against natural disasters. Director of the centre, Dr David Johnston says it is undertaking multi-disciplinary teaching and research aimed at learning about the impacts of disasters on communities.
ENDS
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