Good Emergency Management Practice: The Essentials
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If all of these simple targets are being achieved, then disease will come under control. If one or more is not being met, this should be investigated and corrected. These indicators and actions are the major first-order actions and indicators. Managers with overall responsibility for the control programme should look at these first-order indicators every day, and not only at their actual value compared with the desired level, but also the trend in each indicator. It is not possible to achieve this kind of structured response on an ad hoc basis in the face of an outbreak. The key to response is to have an adequate contingency plan and operations manuals created and tested before an incursion occurs. The roles in preparing the contingency plan and operations manuals were detailed in the section called “Prepare”. The following chapter gives greater detail about the structure and contents of a contingency plan.
Outbreak investigation In order to gather the information required for even a basic management information system, one of the main sources is an epidemiological investigation of each outbreak. This is a specialist activity that requires staff to have been trained in how to conduct it and the use of the standardized data collection forms involved. Ideally these investigations should be carried out by staff from the LDCC epidemiology unit specially allocated to gather this information, rather than being done by all of the personnel who are working. The smaller team allows for a more uniform set of results and also allows the epidemiology unit to build up a detailed first-hand, field-based knowledge of how the disease is being transmitted.
