{"title":"Icehotel or Wonderland? Reimagining the United States' National Incident Management System.","authors":"Lisa Wier, Tony McAleavy","doi":"10.69554/GNIF5652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.69554/GNIF5652","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Disasters and catastrophes are increasing in frequency, severity and complexity, meaning that effective multi-organisational response has never been more pertinent. The United States' National Incident Management System (NIMS), which includes the on-scene Incident Command System (ICS) component, is mandated for use at all levels of government and is often framed, somewhat narrowly, as a mechanistic hierarchy or an organic network. The related literature is divergent: academic critiques are lamented for lacking real-world insights whereas practitioner accounts are, unfairly, dismissed as anecdotal, meaning that novel insights that inform future preparedness are needed. Accordingly, this conceptual study reimagines NIMS/ICS using pragmatism, metaphorical analysis - informed by Morgan's seminal organisational metaphors, Pinto's 'Icehotel', and McCabe's 'Wonderland' metaphors - and symbolic logic. This paper demonstrates that NIMS/ICS is both mechanistic and organic, and much more at the same time. They engender much-needed novel and innovative perspectives which can be embedded within training and education activities to address the increasingly complex nature of disasters and catastrophes.</p>","PeriodicalId":39080,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business continuity & emergency planning","volume":"18 3","pages":"281-302"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144318282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Confronting wicked problems and creeping crises: Integrated crisis management.","authors":"Brendan Monahan","doi":"10.69554/QFYT8147","DOIUrl":"10.69554/QFYT8147","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The disciplines of crisis management, emergency management, business continuity and resilience are at an inflection point. Is the work of professionals in these fields subject to what some have called at recent industry conferences a failure of imagination? Are the tried-and-true methods and activities serving practitioners as well as they always have, or does today's world demand something different? The more important question is: In these conditions, how can crisis leaders do the most good? To answer that question, crisis management professionals may consider shifting their emphasis from planning, training and exercising alone and introducing more explicit focus on the delivery of good decision making - in other words, a transition of emphasis from response planning to more strategic programme management. All crises - whether fast burning, slow burning or creeping - require decision making. Ultimately in the aftermath, organisations and their leaders are judged not only on the outcomes of a crisis response, but on the decisions they made. Furthermore, this judgment is made not only on whether the decisions were right or wrong alone, but also whether they were defensible based on the best available information at the time. In confrontation with these realities, there is a unique role for enterprise crisis teams to define a value proposition along a set of guiding principles. From there, operational execution may be bridged through an integrated crisis management framework. This paper proposes a way forward along these lines. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.</p>","PeriodicalId":39080,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business continuity & emergency planning","volume":"18 4","pages":"314-326"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144052467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial.","authors":"Lyndon Bird","doi":"10.69554/VOMH6630","DOIUrl":"10.69554/VOMH6630","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":39080,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business continuity & emergency planning","volume":"18 4","pages":"312-313"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144052468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bolstering emergency power resilience for hospitals during power outages: How the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency initiative offers a blueprint for other jurisdictions.","authors":"Eric Cote, Terry Crammer, Christopher Sandoval","doi":"10.69554/BLRP8859","DOIUrl":"10.69554/BLRP8859","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper describes an initiative launched by the Los Angeles County (LAC) Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Agency to bolster emergency power resilience for hospitals operating in LAC. The multiyear initiative, launched in 2019 and concluded in October 2023, culminated in the publication of the 'Healthcare Facility Emergency Power Resilience Playbook',1 a heralded resource that introduces innovative protocols to address significant vulnerabilities uncovered during the initiative. These vulnerabilities included seriously outdated generators, facilities with no redundant emergency power and facilities with limited onsite generator fuel storage capacity. New protocols developed to address these gaps include accelerated emergency power threat reporting by hospitals and a first-ever, confidential risk rating of hospital emergency power systems by a government agency. This move is intended to help the LAC EMS Agency maintain closer vigilance of higher-risk facilities during an outage. The new protocols far exceed the federal government's emergency power requirements for hospitals. This paper also outlines the additional steps jurisdictions could consider to build on the LAC EMS Agency's groundbreaking work to achieve even higher levels of emergency power resilience. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.</p>","PeriodicalId":39080,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business continuity & emergency planning","volume":"18 4","pages":"340-356"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144051356","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Brent Hobbs, Alana Hicik, Jeffrey Tochkin, Andre Bloemink
{"title":"Evacuate or shelter-in-place? Applying a risk-informed decision support tool for long-term care facilities threatened by wildfire.","authors":"Brent Hobbs, Alana Hicik, Jeffrey Tochkin, Andre Bloemink","doi":"10.69554/IJET9958","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.69554/IJET9958","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The summer of 2023 was Canada's most destructive wildfire season in recorded history. The southern region of the province of British Columbia (BC) is prone to wildfires and flooding, placing infrastructure, communities and human lives at risk. Residents of long-term care (LTC) facilities are especially vulnerable to these events. Healthcare leaders face the challenge of deciding when and under what circumstances to evacuate an LTC facility. This requires careful evaluation of the dangers posed by the event and the risks associated with the sudden displacement of frail residents. This risk assessment leads to two decision points: is it safer for residents to shelter-in-place or to evacuate to an alternative care facility? Given the increasing frequency and severity of climate-related disasters and their impact on the health and well-being of LTC residents, health emergency incident managers identified the need to develop a standardised approach for evacuation decision making. This paper analyses how the Interior Health (IH) Authority collaborated with Health Emergency Management BC (HEMBC) to develop an Evacuation Risk Decision-Support Tool. This tool informed LTC facility evacuations during the 2023 McDougall Creek wildfire in West Kelowna, BC.</p>","PeriodicalId":39080,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business continuity & emergency planning","volume":"18 3","pages":"253-267"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144318280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jeff Schlegelmilch, Sean Hansen, Ilina Hristova, Qëndresa Krasniqi, Alexandra Potter, Jacqueline Ratner, Antonia Samur
{"title":"Expanding the paradigm of evaluating community benefits in investments in grid resilience utilising a balanced scorecard approach.","authors":"Jeff Schlegelmilch, Sean Hansen, Ilina Hristova, Qëndresa Krasniqi, Alexandra Potter, Jacqueline Ratner, Antonia Samur","doi":"10.69554/PYOK2320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.69554/PYOK2320","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The electric grid is increasingly a major component in the impact of and recovery from disasters. Ultimately, investments in grid resilience help to sustain the ability of a community to withstand and recover after a disaster by mitigating the effects of widespread power outages and hardening critical infrastructure to better withstand and recover from disasters. This notion of 'resilience', however, has generally been more theoretical and aspirational rather than something that can be quantified and ultimately integrated into systems evaluation and decision-making paradigms. This paper describes how on resilience profile and balanced scorecard approaches, an evidence-informed approach towards quantifying resilience across various domains utilising a modified balanced scorecard methodology is presented.</p>","PeriodicalId":39080,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business continuity & emergency planning","volume":"18 3","pages":"241-252"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144318281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Integrating cyber resilience: A critical component of comprehensive business resilience.","authors":"Robert Fernandes","doi":"10.69554/LMGO9459","DOIUrl":"10.69554/LMGO9459","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper advocates for the integration of threat exposure monitoring (TEM) as a critical tool in cyber security resilience frameworks. As organisations face increasing cyber threats, TEM provides an essential, proactive approach to identifying potential vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. By monitoring various online environments, including the dark web, hacker forums and misconfigured cloud storage, TEM can uncover compromised credentials, exposed data and other risk factors that could lead to operational disruptions. This proactive monitoring strategy enhances an organisation's preparedness, helping to prevent costly incidents and mitigate risks before they escalate. Using notable case studies, such as the Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident and the Orange Spain outage, the paper illustrates the devastating impact of cyber breaches and underscores how TEM could help avoid similar disruptions. Readers will gain an understanding of how to implement a TEM programme, identify critical digital assets for monitoring and integrate TEM within broader threat intelligence practices. Ultimately, this paper provides resilience professionals with a structured approach to leveraging TEM for robust cyber defence, offering practical insights on reducing exposure risks and strengthening overall business resiliency. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.</p>","PeriodicalId":39080,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business continuity & emergency planning","volume":"18 4","pages":"357-371"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144016562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Active shooters: The underutilisation of emergency operations centres - the need for a checklist to guide response and recovery.","authors":"Mikel Alford, Rachel Hollinger","doi":"10.69554/WFRD1370","DOIUrl":"10.69554/WFRD1370","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The emergency operations centre (EOC) is a critical emergency response and recovery component that provides information management and resource allocation. EOCs are often used during all hazards; however, after reviewing over 25 after-action reports for active shooter incidents, they are frequently underutilised. Not activating or delaying activation can slow recovery efforts and lead to chaos for the first responders and the public due to a lack of situational awareness. Historical active shooter incidents, such as the San Bernardino attack, Uvalde school shooting and Aurora theatre shooting, highlight both the challenges and successes of EOC activations. Positive examples, including the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) shooting and Pulse Nightclub attack, demonstrate how timely EOC activation improved resource coordination, victim services and public communications. A specialised active assailant checklist for EOC operations has remained largely absent even though the incidents pose a complex threat. The City of Murrieta and the City of Temecula worked to fill that void. They developed an 'Active Shooter EOC Checklist', informed by lessons learned from previous mass shootings and resources such as the 'United on Guns' protocol. The checklist guides the agencies through emergency operations, ensuring public communication, victim assistance, volunteer and donation management, recovery and other critical functions are not missed. This paper describes how EOC utilisation can streamline response operations, reduce fatalities and support community recovery efforts. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.</p>","PeriodicalId":39080,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business continuity & emergency planning","volume":"18 4","pages":"381-394"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144062623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Suzy Fitzgerald, Virginia Riggall, Jennifer Quevedo
{"title":"Enhancing healthcare emergency management training through virtual reality simulation.","authors":"Suzy Fitzgerald, Virginia Riggall, Jennifer Quevedo","doi":"10.69554/CTPY9516","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.69554/CTPY9516","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper examines the challenges associated with training healthcare systems to respond effectively to rare, high-risk and complex disaster events. It explores the potential application of virtual reality (VR) simulation in healthcare emergency management training, describes a pilot education programme implemented by a large healthcare organisation for mass casualty incident (MCI) triage training using VR simulation, outlines steps to implement VR simulation into the healthcare emergency management training curriculum, and discusses possible future directions for further development and research in this area.</p>","PeriodicalId":39080,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business continuity & emergency planning","volume":"18 3","pages":"222-240"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144318279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Adapting workplace violence strategies to manage company risk and the modern workforce paradigm.","authors":"Robert Achenbach, Debra Andersen","doi":"10.69554/NTRS4803","DOIUrl":"10.69554/NTRS4803","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As the remote workforce evolves, security professionals must align the workplace violence strategy to secure assets, data and employees to manage company risk tolerances. The threat of workplace violence is not only confined to the traditional office space, it is also a relevant threat for employees working from their own homes. Employees working from home do not have access to the same physical security protections or practices in place in the pre-pandemic workplace. This paper examines considerations for identifying and preparing for threats of violence and establishing a proactive approach for securing the new workforce paradigm. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.</p>","PeriodicalId":39080,"journal":{"name":"Journal of business continuity & emergency planning","volume":"18 4","pages":"327-339"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144037450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}