ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Health works with partner agencies to prepare, prevent, respond to and recover from emergencies and major incidents.
Effective planning and preparation can reduce the impact on people’s health from many types of emergencies including:
Planning and preparation involves developing and testing arrangements that will be used during an emergency response, understanding how best to adapt our response capacity and making sure ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Health employees can access emergency preparedness training.
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Health can provide pre-hospital response (through ambulance services, medical retrieval and deployed health response teams), hospital care and post-hospital recovery during and after emergencies. ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Health also assesses and responds to risks to the health of a population or community and provides mental health care. Developing and delivering accessible health advice and information to the public, partner agencies and ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Health employees is a crucial aspect of any emergency response.
During an emergency response, ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Health and our partner agencies communicate regularly to determine the most effective and appropriate response.
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Health is guided by state and national emergency management plans and legislation to ensure all aspects of an emergency and are effectively managed from a health perspective.
During a public health emergency response, epidemiology is used to understand the needs of affected populations, the nature of the disease or exposure, and to inform control activities.
Laboratory tests enhance patient management and public health response to a health emergency, which may be due to a communicable disease, or a biological, chemical or trauma incident.