Disasters in Medical Care Contexts: Planning for resilience in incident command personnel and systems in hospitals

This book chapter first describes the context in which disaster response planning occurs. It next discusses the systems, procedures and competencies that facilitate the ability of hospitals and medical staff to adapt to the circumstances and consequences encountered when responding to a disaster. The chapter specifically examines strategic response planning and management (disaster preparedness and organizational learning, multi-agency response, staff roles and deployment, remote treatment centres, and staffing issues); the involved coordinating/tactical incident management teams (incident management team development and management, and team and inter-agency operations); and operational response (management practices, support, and training).