Sometimes you need the old systems as well

Whilst I'm quite proud of the Health sectors national EMIS capability we've always recognised that its inherent strength, the ability to rapidly share information across agencies, is of course reliant on internet access. This is a balance of risk; the enhanced information management offered by WebEOC is offset by the risk that internet access may be compromised by the very event we are managing. While a number of agencies are now looking at satellite broadband in order to help ensure resilient connectivity it may still take 12 or 24 hours to get this capability operational in an affected area.

We've therefore developed a standardised self-carbonising message pad that allows users to record position log and task entries in exactly the same way as they would do in WebEOC. These pads produce 4 copies, allowing one each to be assigned to the Position Log, EOC Event Log, EOC Sig Event and Tasking. All pads are uniquely numbered as well as having each data field labelled allowing national sig event or tasks to be accurately communicated between agencies.

Emergency managers in health agencies that have access to EMIS have been sent their agencies allocation of forms.

I've also developed some pre-formatted display boards to record EOC & National Sig Events as well as EOC Status. These are A3 word documents and can be used as a paper based form or enlarged to A0 and laminated as shown below. If anyone would like a copy of these please email me. Used in conjunction with the pads these also provide an excellent visual demonstration of how a EOC event, Sig event or task is visible to all users in an EOC.