Question

The SNS is a pivotal tool in the event of a disaster.

• List and explain the types of items a community hospital will require and seek from the SNS in the event of a disaster.
• List and explain at least two concerns you may have when forced to rely on this facility.
• During the creation of disaster plans, it is common and essential that neighboring hospitals work together. List and explain some of the problems that may arise from a disaster plan, which may be ten years old and involved all of the local community hospitals at the time it was originally designed.

Make sure that you include an introduction and conclusion to your post.

Answer 1

Answer:

Introduction: SNS (Strategic National Stockpile) is definitely a pivotal tool. It is an incredible program undertaken to be able to provide lifesaving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency in a short duration
of time. This disaster may be internal or external may be informed or uninformed. Whatever may be the situation, a disaster is an emergency situation which lays an intense burden on the health system.

For some disaster like hurricane, flood and volcanoes- the hospital receives a warning and are able to activate their disaster plan before the event. But some disaster like earthquake, tsunami, there is no advance warning. Hospital is the first institutions which are affected by the incident of a disaster. In order to prepare a hospital to handle such massive casualties of disaster, every hospital should have a disaster plan which requires internal as well as community planning.

1) The use of social network services (SNS) like facebook twitter has a pivotal role to play during disaster management. At the event of a disaster, the preparedness of the institution to face the damages resulting from the event is very important. The most significant item that a community hospital can seek from the SNS is

• Training and knowledge: Adequate information about the disaster, its nature and ways to combat its effect are available in social media. It educates us about the previous disaster and its management measures.
• Planning: A good disaster management plan is crucial. The information regarding the various disaster plans and the outcome of the implementation of those plans will help the hospital develop and implement a proper disaster plan with available resources.
• Means of communication: During a disaster, almost all other methods of communication is lost. Social networks help to establish global relationships.
• Emergency warnings: The social networks are used widely nowadays to generate alerts on a massive scale to alarm community about the upcoming disaster.
• Helps to generate volunteers and donor to help during disaster management.
• Connect the family and friends.
• Provides information about the unclaimed properties, dead bodies.
• Helps to coordinate relief efforts with other agencies.
• Situational updates: gives awareness about the present scenario after the disaster and measure taken to manage a disaster.

2) The major two concerns while relying on the use of social network is the validity of information and effectiveness of the interventions. It has been experienced that all the information available on the social network site is not reliable. Sometimes, the information is from a past event or may be wrong information. The other concern is about the use of intervention based on the information received from social networks. During a disaster, there is hardly any time to make trials. The effectiveness of any plan as per the social network cannot be evaluated. Its a hit and trial method.

3) During creating a disaster plan, it is common and essential that the neighbouring hospitals work together. Not all the hospital possess adequate resources to accommodate the casualties of a disaster. Therefore in a locality of disaster, certain hospitals are alarming to activate their disaster management plan. The other hospital with limited resources is adviced to be prepared to receive casualty if the major hospital runs out of manpower and resources. One of the major issues that were found in such a scenario is the miscommunication among the people within the hospital management and those engaged in the disaster site. Often the casualties are brought accidentally to those institutions who were secondarily advised to stay prepared to receive casualties. This resulted in the loss of lives due to lack of manpower and resources.

The other problem that was found is improper disaster management plan. Framing a good disaster plan in a hospital is crucial during disaster management. Adequate training and knowledge are needed to develop an effective disaster plan. It has also seen that in some situations the neighbouring hospitals do not cooperate to participate in the disaster management.

To conclude, although a natural disaster is unpredictable and causes severe damage in the community, its intensity of damage can be reduced with adequate use of SNS, adequate alert system, good disaster plan in hospitals and with good collaborative efforts of the various groups in the community.

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