Public Health Preparedness & Leadership

1. Public Health Preparedness & Leadership Louis Rowitz, PhD, Director Mid-America Regional Public Health Leadership Institute

2. Objectives • By the end of this session, you will be able to: • Describe the relative importance of crisis management for current public health leaders. • Describe the seven competencies of crisis leadership. • Discuss three measures of success in collaborative leadership. • Describe the seven step crisis communication plan. • Describe three lessons of crisis leadership.

3. We cannot live in a post-September 11, 2001 world with a pre-September 11, 2001 mind. —adapted from Angela Thirkell, 1933

4. Traditional and Crisis Leadership What are the differences?

5. Fortune favors the prepared mind. — Louis Pasteur

6. Definition of Crisis A crisis is characterized by a high degree of instability and carries the potential for extremely negative results that can endanger the lives of people in a community. —Adapted from Klann

7. Types of Crises • Natural disaster • Act of war • Toxic chemical release • Hazardous material spill • Crash or derailment • Legal or judicial crisis • Human resource/reputation incident • Informational problem • Strike or boycott • Terrorist act • Financial catastrophe

8. Reality Check Warnings don’t get headlines, crises do. — Anderson Cooper

9. Be Prepared The New Public Health Marching Song

10. Critical Issue How do I keep my family safe?

11. Question One How prepared is your community to respond to a public health crisis? A. Prepared to manage all aspects that can be controlled. B. Prepared to manage most important aspects of a crisis. C. Many important aspects of a crisis would not be effectively managed. D. We had better avoid a major crisis.

12. Public Health Response Societal pressure Local Public Health Response (Complexity) Community crisis and priorities Strategic challenges National agenda

13. Leadership and Preparednessin Crisis Situations

14. Bioterrorism: Competencies for Leaders (1 of 2) • Describethe chain of command and management system. • Communicate public health information/roles/capacities/legal authority accurately to all emergency response partners. • Maintainregular communication with emergency response partners.

15. Competencies for Leaders (2 of 2) • Assurethat the agency has an updated written plan. • Assurethat the agency regularly practices all parts of emergency response. • Evaluateevery emergency response drill. • Assurethat knowledge and skills are transmitted to others.

16. Who Is in Charge? Incident Command System Bioterrorism or disaster event Collaboration Collaboration No collaboration

17. New Partnerships • Emergency management system • Police departments • Fire departments • Emergency medical system • Community health centers • FBI • Local public health department • Department of Homeland Security

18. New Models of Collaboration • Share work. • Maintain organizational identities. • Take advantage of synergy.

19. Changing Ways to Work • Core workers • Specialists • General workers • Community residents

20. Measures of Success in Collaborative Leadership • Communication • Assessment • Conflict management • Trust development • Decision making • Management of safety concerns

21. Question Two • Historically, how well have organizations in your community collaborated? • A. High level of historical and successful collaboration. • B. Some effective collaboration on simple issues. • C. Very little collaboration in the past. • D. More competition than collaboration.

22. Relationship between Risk Communication and Crisis Communication

23. Risk Communication Skills • High concern/high stress situations • Trust determination and building trust • Strategies for stressed people who do not listen • Skills for dealing with negative statements (Covello) • 1 N = 3 P • One negative = three positive • Risk perception by the public and skills for dealing with it

24. Crisis Communication Communities must form a flexible crisis communication team (CCT) that can be activated quickly. This team can implement a communication plan as a part of the total response effort.

25. Seven Step Communications Response Plan • Activate the CCT. • Gather and verify information. • Assess the gravity of the crisis. • Identify key stakeholders. • Implement a communications strategy. • Develop external materials. • Inform partners, stakeholders, and media.

26. Knowledge of the Law • Police powers • Personal rights • Confidentiality—HIPAA

27. Question Three • Does your community have a comprehensive crisis communication plan? • 1. Yes • 2. No • 3. Maybe

28. New Leadership Skills for New Times

29. Major Crisis Leadership Lessons* (1 of 3) • Prepare for at least one crisis in each crisis family. • It is not sufficient to prepare for crises that are normal in community. • Prepare for the simultaneous occurrence of multiple crises. • The purpose of definitions are to guide, not predict. *(Mitroff)

30. Major Crisis Leadership Lessons (2 of 3) • Every type of crisis can happen to every organization. • No type of crisis should be taken literally. • Tampering is the most generic form or type of crisis. • No crisis ever happens as one plans for it. • Traditional risk analysis is both dangerous and misleading.

31. Major Crisis Leadership Lessons (3 of 3) • Every crisis is capable of being both cause and the effect of any other crisis. • Crisis leadership is systemic. • Perform a systemic crisis audit of your agency and community. • Crisis leaders not only recognize the validity of all types of crisis, but they also see the interconnections between them.

32. Communities should make plans now for dealing with any recurrences. The most promising way to deal with a possible recurrence is to sum it up in a single word, “preparedness,” and now is the time to prepare. —Rupert Blue Civilian Surgeon General, 1919

33. Leadership Will Involve Working at All Levels of the System

34. Summary Question • Are you both able and willing to take a leadership role in your community during a future crisis? • 1. Yes • 2. No