Emergency Planning and Disaster Recovery Management Model in Hospitality—Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle Approach

This study aims to present the impact of disasters, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, on the possibility of recovering from and mitigating such impacts. The paper proposes a new emergency planning and disaster recovery management model (EPDRM) which links the ISO 31000:2018 (Risk Management) requirements with the process approach. The model was validated through its application to ISO-certified and ISO-non-certified hotels. The analysis was performed by using an online questionnaire based on the ISO 31000:2018 requirements, where given questions were grouped into 14 categories and presented according to the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle. The proposed methodology has not been used by other researchers for similar problems. Current results are especially important, because they were collected after the lockdown that had a significant impact on hospitality and tourism in the world. This paper discusses the effect of hotel properties (such as size, certification, and categorization) on the implementation level of the emergency planning and disaster recovery management model. This survey was conducted in 109 hotels in Serbia. The results show that the average level of application was 35.80%. The survey also points to the development possibilities of alternative tourisms in response to COVID-19, and whether the hotel facilities were suitable for such changes in times of increased uncertainty. The results represent the basis of scientific data for improving the national policy, especially during the recovery from a disaster such as COVID-19, as well as emergency planning activities during the pandemic. The study limitations can be identified in the small research sample and insufficient cooperation of contacted hotels as well as the willingness of hotels' managements to participate in the study. The hotels' managers should be aware of the implementation of emergency planning measures, and without their willingness, this cannot be achieved at any level. © 2023 by the authors.

Rethinking local resilience for extreme heat events.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to provide insights into how local resilience structures in England can be leveraged to deliver a whole-of-society approach to managing a national response to extreme heat events during summer months. STUDY DESIGN: A communication based on the literature review of currently available research on health emergency response and extreme heat events in England. METHODS: This communication draws insights from the authors' research programmes, which examined national-level public health emergency response during the COVID-19 pandemic and literature review of the latest available English research on health and extreme heat events. RESULTS: Periods of extreme heat are on the rise in England. Local resilience forums (LRFs), due to their multiagency nature, offer a shared situational awareness and understanding of the need in their local communities. Such information is critical to ensure messaging about heat risks and available resources are tailored to reach specific targeted groups within their communities. Scenario planning and adaptation efforts require a more local articulation which LRFs are well placed to manage. CONCLUSIONS: LRFs are well suited as key structures in the English emergency response to extreme heat events. We suggest that English public health and hospital organisations, working with community partners via the LRFs, must develop their thinking about pressures from adverse weather in the summer months.

Virtual Supply Chain Network Platform Design and Development for Crisis Response

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerability of the Canadian economy on many fronts. When the demand for lifesaving equipment increased globally, the supply chain networks were broken by the direct involvement of other countries. The rising competition and interruptions caused Canada to face significant difficulties in global markets to secure critical medical equipment and protective materials. Not only hospitals and healthcare workers but also the public and patients had no access to the needed equipment even though companies and organizations in the country have the required capacity and resources. In such emergency times, Canada should produce the essential equipment within the country. We propose a four-step strategic product manufacturing system to ensure crisis response. The first and second steps are creating a manufacturing capability database of Canadian companies and a library of product families, respectively. These two steps should be completed before the crisis. The third step involves emergency need analysis, equipment design and forecasting. Finally, the fourth step is developing a virtual supply chain network platform through which the procurement, production, and transportation activities will be scheduled based on the capability database, product families library, and requirements analysis in the most efficient and economical way possible. The research utilizes various tools such as forecasting, optimization, simulation, multi-criteria decision making, and engineering design tools. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Hospital-based autonomous pre-clinical screening of COVID-19: An emergency triage using a vital signs recording system, Paris-Ile de France region.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic toll worldwide on the populations but also has been essentially supported by the existing public health system, particularly hospital-based emergency wards and intensive care units. In France, the first cases were identified on the 24th of January 2020. The first epidemic sprout emerged in the Eastern part of the country and spread in two weeks towards the center to the Paris-region where it peaked on the 14th of April 2020. In Paris and the region around it, the intensity of the epidemic has increased significantly to have a strong impact on all public and private hospital systems in a few weeks. During France's 2020 COVID-19 epidemic, a private hospital went into a major organizational change of its Emergency Department which mainly included the use of a Telemedicine Booth for vitals automatic recording during triage procedures.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to share a unique exerience centered on the use of a Telemedicine Booth as a screening process during an epidemic. Researche design: The present study is a case report describing the organizational scheme adopted by the hospital and discusses the data of 1844 patients that attended the facility over a month and the results of a questionaire survey adressed to the Emergency Department personnel.Study sample: The study population is the population that Data where collecte.Data collection and analysis: Quantitative activity indicators' data were collected with a specific triage register, patient management software and the Telemedicine Booth activity software and were analysed with basic statistics. Results and Conclusions: Among the 1844 patients, 766 were engaged in an automated triage process supported by a Telemedicine Booth. Patients' clinical characteristics are comparable to those found in international literature during the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of the Telemedicine Booth as a screening process facilitated patients' flow. It usefully participated in the patient rapid orientation, relieving the hospital emergency department, actively contributes in a safe and secure environment highly trusted by the hospital staff and health workers. To our knowledge, the Telemedicine Booth use as a screening process during an epidemic constitutes the first contribution to such an innovative approach.

Changing transport planning objectives during the Covid-19 lockdowns: Actions taken and lessons learned for enhancing sustainable urban mobility planning.

Whilst there is research on how Covid-19 impacted travel demand and transport business, little attention has been paid on how Covid-19 has affected authorities' transport planning priorities and the actions taken to protect the public while travelling. This paper attempts to shed light on: a) how the transport planning priorities changed during the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020/2021, and b) how the planning phases of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) framework can be strengthened to support a more resilient emergency planning environment. To address these questions, an online questionnaire was designed followed up by personal interviews from selected European cities. Data collection took place in November and December 2020, when most European countries were in lockdowns. Thirteen public authorities participated in the online questionnaire, while nine out of them were further interviewed. A mixed methods approach is used to analyse the quantitative and qualitative data and bring the results together to assess how SUMP priorities have changed. The results showed that the priority planning objectives were different in the period during the 2020/2021 lockdowns compared to the period before that. Public transport system planning was a priority in both periods, while planning for shared mobility and Mobility as a Service was further prioritised in the 2020/21 lockdowns. The main reasons for prioritising specific planning objectives were to secure public health, minimise environmental impact, support economic recovery and address social equity. The changes in the priority of planning objectives were also diverse between smaller and larger urban areas. Most of the actions adopted to accommodate the prioritised planning objectives were already defined before Covid-19, indicating that the lockdowns have acted as an accelerator of specific existing planning objectives.

Rising food insecurity and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on emergency food assistance in Michigan

This study of eight types of emergency food assistance organizations in Michigan, USA, is the first statewide study of the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts on the operations of these organizations. It focuses on the following question: How did the pandemic affect the operations of emergency food assistance organizations? The paper examines how the race/ethnicity of the organization's director was related to program activities, the pandemic's impacts, and responses to the pandemic. It offers new insights into emergency food assistance organizations operated by Black and multicultural directors. The article examines how the sex of the emergency food assistance directors is related to programming, the pandemic's impacts, and responses to it. Most studies of emergency food assistance focus on urban areas. In addition to studying organizations in the state's metropolitan areas, we also study organizations in small towns and rural areas. The paper also analyzes two additional questions: How did the government support the state's emergency food assistance organizations during the pandemic? And how do organization leaders perceive government responses to the pandemic? The sample consists of 181 emergency food assistance organizations. Whites directed most organizations;82.9% had a primary director who was White, 11% had Black directors, and 6.1% had directors from other racial/ethnic groups. The organizations studied are long-lived;they have been operating for a mean of 20.8 years. The organizations serve meals to an average of 79 people per day. They also provide food items to roughly 185 people daily. The pandemic had profound effects on the operations of emergency food assistance organizations. About 28% of the organizations indicated that they cut back on their programming, and just over a fifth of the organizations limited their operating hours. Moreover, 23% of the organizations reported that the number of restaurants donating food declined, while 18% percent reported a decline in supermarket food donations. However, 58.9% of the organizations increased the amount of food they distributed, and 61.3% reported an increase in the number of people seeking food from the organization. During the pandemic, White-run organizations obtained government funding from 19 sources, multicultural-led organizations got government support from 10 sources, and Black-run organizations received support from three sources. Forty percent of directors in allBlack-run organizations, 23.5% of those in multiracial-led organizations, and 22.6% of the directors in all-White-led organizations criticized government responses to the pandemic.

Assessment of Critical Dependencies for Rapid Disaster Recovery

The Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission assessed performance of wastewater conveyance and treatment facilities for two catastrophic natural disasters: the Cascadia Subduction Zone seismic event (magnitude 9.0 to 9.2) and catastrophic 500-year flood event adjusted to reflect exacerbations from climate change. Performance was assessed with respect to achieving post disaster recovery goals set forth in the Oregon Resiliency Plan. As part of the assessment MWMC identified and assessed critical dependencies that could substantially impact their ability to respond and recover from the natural disasters. MWMC identified the most critical dependencies through collaborative staff engagement. The collaborative effort and assessments that followed allowed MWMC to identify actions that would help better prepare for any disaster event and minimize the potential for cascading failures. As an example, MWMC's Continuity of Operations Plan was as a useful tool for establishing minimum staffing levels for essential operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Copyright © 2021 Water Environment Federation

Emergency management plan training in higher education: Faculty report of preparedness for active-shooter incidents

As a result of the shootings at Virginia Tech, colleges and universities in collaboration with federal and state agencies have developed emergency management plans to prepare for active shooter situations. In Ohio, the collaboration resulted in its public universities reporting that they had developed emergency preparedness plans to address active shooter situations. Historically, faculty have played a critical role in responding to shootings but have not been a focus of active shooter preparedness research in higher education. The purpose of this study was to investigate the self-reported preparedness of higher education faculty in their roles as responders in active shooter situations as well as to identify factors that were related to their reported preparedness. In this study, survey data were collected from 761 faculty recruited from the public, four-year universities in Ohio. The survey the faculty completed included subscales related to their institutions' active shooter preparedness planning and training processes as well as faculty report of their self-efficacy to respond. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were completed to determine significant relationships and predictors of faculty preparedness. The statistical analyses identified 46 significant relationships out of 78 comparisons among the identified variables with the strongest relationship being a moderate strength correlation between institutional planning and training subscale scores. In addition, there were eight significant predictors of faculty report of preparedness to respond to an active shooter situation identified with self-efficacy as the strongest predictor. Limitations include the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the recruitment of participants as well as the inability to tie results back to specific institutions. Implications for theory, policymakers, and practitioners are discussed as well as suggestions for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Covid-19 threat and coping: application of protection motivation theory to the pandemic experiences of people affected by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

BACKGROUND: People with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are at high risk for severe outcomes from Covid-19 infection. Researchers exploring ALS and Covid-19 have focused primarily on system response and adaptation. Using Protection Motivation Theory, we investigated how people with ALS and family caregivers appraised and responded to Covid-19 threat, the 'costs' associated with pandemic response, and how health professionals and systems can better support people affected by ALS who are facing public health emergencies. METHODS: Data were drawn from the 'ALS Talk Project,' an asynchronous, moderated focus group study. Participants were recruited from regions across Canada. Seven groups met online over 14 weeks between January and July 2020. Fifty-three participants contributed to Covid-19 discussions. Data were qualitatively analyzed using directed content analysis and the constant-comparative approach. RESULTS: Participants learned about the Covid-19 pandemic from the media. They rapidly assessed their vulnerability and responded to Covid-19 threat by following recommendations from health authorities, information monitoring, and preparing for worst-case scenarios. Adopting protective behaviors had substantial response costs, including adaptations for medical care and home support workers, threatened access to advance care, and increased caregiver burden. Participants expressed need for ALS-specific, pandemic information from trusted health professionals and/or ALS health charities. Telemedicine introduced both conveniences and costs. Prior experience with ALS provided tools for coping with Covid-19. Threat and coping appraisal was a dynamic process involving ongoing vigilance and adaptation. Findings draw attention to the lack of emergency preparedness among participants and within health systems. CONCLUSIONS: Clinicians should engage ALS patients and families in ongoing discussions about pandemic coping, strategies to mitigate response costs, care pathways in the event of Covid-19 infection, and changing information about Covid-19 variants and vaccines. Healthcare systems should incorporate flexible approaches for medical care, leveraging the benefits of telemedicine and facilitating in-person interaction as needed and where possible. Research is needed to identify strategies to mitigate response costs and to further explore the interaction between prior experience and coping. Further study is also needed to determine how communication about emergency preparedness might be effectively incorporated into clinical care for those with ALS and other medically vulnerable populations.

Sizing up disaster risk reduction: A qualitative study of the voices of big bodied people in Aotearoa New Zealand

The principles of disaster risk reduction includes understanding of disaster risk in all dimensions including meaningful inclusion of marginalised populations. This research sought to hear and record the voices of big bodied people to answer the question “What are the experiences, perceptions and preparedness for disasters of big bodied people and/or their families?” and inform DRR considerations in Aotearoa New Zealand. Purposive sampling recruited seventeen people identifying as big bodied. Qualitative semi structured interviews were conducted between October 2018 and April 2020. One interview was conducted via Zoom™ during the COVID-19 pandemic, all others were in person. Audio recordings of the interviews were transcribed and data were reflexively thematically analysed. Three main themes were identified: Being big in a disaster;Harsh realities;and Ready or not. Advocacy is required to ensure that the concerns and needs of BBP particular to size, shape and weight are heard and included in DRR and disaster planning. Emergency managers should be supported to ensure that engagement with BBP is appropriate, not stigmatising or discriminatory.

Aging queer in a pandemic: intersectionalities and perceptions

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to highlight the experiences and issues of an overlooked demographic: older LGBTQ + adults in the US, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This allows the authors to explore possible changes in policy and practice regarding the management of the pandemic with attention to elderly LGBTQ. Design/methodology/approach: Building on the authors’ experience in disaster research and a study of older LGBTQ + adults in the San Francisco Bay Area, the authors analyze key trends in COVID-19 pandemic management while drawing lessons from the AIDS epidemic. Findings: The authors have found that LGBTQ + people, especially older and transgender individuals, have unique experiences with hazards and public safety and healthcare professionals and organizations (e.g. heteronormative care, traumatic insensitivity, deprioritizing essential treatments as elective). Second, older LGBTQ + adults' perceptions of state responses to pandemics were heavily influenced by experiences with the HIV/AIDS pandemic. And third, experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic have important implications for preventing, responding to and recovering from future epidemics/pandemics. Originality/value: The authors point to two parallel implications of this work. The first entails novel approaches to queering disaster prevention, response and recovery. And the second is to connect the management of the COVID-19 pandemic to the principles of harm reduction developed by grassroots organizations to suggest new ways to think about contagion and organize physical distancing, while still socializing to take care of people’s physical and mental health, especially the more marginalized like elderly LGBTQ + people. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Emergency planning put to the test

The COVID-19 epidemic and the floods in Wallonia in July 2021 are dramatic events but rich in lessons: These two disasters have put to the test the risk management system that we have established over the last few decades to ensure the protection of society against threats of various kinds: Industrial, environmental, terrorist, etc. COVID-19 caught many European countries unaware that they were safe from epidemic risks. Torrential rains almost completely submerged the Vesdre valley. These two disasters required the authors to take a step back and reflect on the profound transformations they provoked in crisis management and emergency planning in order to open up new lines of research and to launch avenues of reform in this sector, which they have been studying for over ten years. © 2021 Societe Royale des Sciences de Liege. All rights reserved.

Pandemic planning, sustainability practices, and organizational performance: An empirical investigation of global manufacturing firms

Disruption events like pandemic crises and natural disasters are unpredictable and therefore, most organizations are implementing an emergency plan to mitigate the unforeseen risks. This paper presents a research framework based on sustainability theory perspectives (i.e., crisis life cycle and management cycle). To test a research model that defines key variables, we assess and validate the hypothesized relationships using a large-scale survey. The respondents are from global food, pharmaceutical, and medical manufacturing companies (n = 301). We use a polynomial regression method coupled to response surface analysis. Results suggest that in the COVID-19 pandemic context, pandemic emergency planning dimensions are positively related to organizational performance metrics (e.g., sales, net profit, on-time orders, and quality) of the food, medical and pharmaceutical industries. The response surface analysis also shows that prudent firms implement triple sustainability practices--economic improvement practices, socially responsible practices, and environmental practices--to ensure their market competitiveness and corporate reputation during critical times. Theoretical and managerial implications are presented for future studies.

Optimizing Pandemic Preparedness at Birmingham Water Works.

Birmingham Water Works (BWW), like every business and institution, was faced with tremendous challenges related to COVID-19 in 2020. But using Partnership for Safe Water principles, BWW was able to keep operations at its Putnam Filter Plant running while keeping the plant's staff safe.

The next big earthquake may inflict a multi-hazard crisis - Insights from COVID-19, extreme weather and resilience in peripheral cities of Israel.

The occurrence of a natural disaster in an area already coping with an epidemic, constitutes a multi-hazard event. Such events are more likely than ever during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In regions that seasonally experience extreme-weather disasters, such multi-hazard crises are imminent. People living along the Dead Sea Fault and in the Negev are used to harsh weather conditions and to the hardship of living in isolation. While self-reliance and community-support are often the norm in the daily life of residents in in peripheral communities, in an emergency they may be crucial for survival. Worldwide remote communities with limited response and medical infrastructure and resources may struggle to cope with the aftermath of an earthquake while potentially coping with a concurrent epidemic or extreme weather. In this work we focus on the effect of concurring disasters and seasonal stressors. In particular we discuss how various disasters would affect the Covid-19 infection rate, and we demonstrate that in Israel's periphery cities, heat-stress is a consistent and significant seasonal stressor that would hamper emergency and recovery operations. We also suggest that transient tourist population in these remote cities is expected to burden local emergency efforts and facilities. A seasonal over burden parameter is proposed to describe how seasonal tourism and weather conditions enhance the hardship and risk in a multi-hazard situation. A case study shows that high-resolution spatial analysis of risk and preparedness together with a temporal analysis of seasonal effects, may be used to detect specific neighborhoods with high or low resilience and capacity to cope with disasters. Our work demonstrates the need for spatial and temporal, multi-hazard analysis for improving local resilience and emergency plans in periphery cities and communities exposed to seasonal harsh weather.

Decision support tool for hospital resource allocation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic has placed unprecedented demands on entire health systems and driven them to their capacity, so that health care professionals have been confronted with the difficult problem of ensuring appropriate staffing and resources to a high number of critically ill patients. In light of such high-demand circumstances, we describe an open web-accessible simulation-based decision support tool for a better use of finite hospital resources. The aim is to explore risk and reward under differing assumptions with a model that diverges from most existing models which focus on epidemic curves and related demand of ward and intensive care beds in general. While maintaining intuitive use, our tool allows randomized "what-if" scenarios which are key for real-time experimentation and analysis of current decisions' down-stream effects on required but finite resources over self-selected time horizons. While the implementation is for COVID-19, the approach generalizes to other diseases and high-demand circumstances.

Responding to pandemics and other disease outbreaks in homeless populations: A review of the literature and content analysis.

Considering the recent COVID-19 pandemic, we recognised a lack of synthesis amongst the available literature pertaining to the intersections of homelessness and pandemic response and planning. Therefore, the purpose of this review was to identify relevant peer-reviewed literature in this area to thematically produce evidence-based recommendations that would inform community planning and response amongst homeless populations. Although this review is inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic, our intention was to produce relevant recommendations to for all current and future outbreaks and pandemics more generally. Our search criteria focused on pandemics and rapid-spread illnesses such as contagious respiratory diseases with contact spread and with an emphasis on individuals experiencing homelessness. Content analysis methods were followed to extract and thematically synthesise key information amongst the 223 articles that matched our search criteria between the years of 1984 and 2020. Two reviewers were assigned to the screening process and used Covidence and undertook two rounds of discussion to identify and finalise themes for extraction. This review illustrates that the current breadth of academic literature on homeless populations has thus far focused on tuberculosis (TB) rather than diseases that are more recent and closely related to COVID-19-such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or H1N1. Our thematic content analysis revealed six themes that offer tangible and scalable recommendations which include (1) education and outreach, (2) adapting structure of services, (3) screening and contract tracing, (4) transmission and prevention strategies, (5) shelter protocols and (6) treatment, adherence and vaccination. The breadth and depth of reviews such as these are dependent on the quantity and quality of the available literature. Therefore, the limited existing literature outside of tuberculosis specific to homelessness in this review illustrates a need for more academic research into the intersections of pandemics and homelessness-particularly for evaluations of response and planning. Nonetheless, this review offers timely considerations for pandemic response and planning amongst homeless populations during the current COVID-19 pandemic and can facilitate future research in this area.