Northwest Center for Public Health Practice

Preparing for the Future: Public Health Leadership & Management Preparedness Series

Public Health Preparedness & Leadership

Louis Rowitz, PhD, Director

Mid-America Regional Public Health Leadership Institute

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.

We cannot live in a post-September 11, 2001 world

with a pre-September 11, 2001 mind.

—adapted from Angela Thirkell, 1933

Traditional and Crisis Leadership

What are the differences?

Fortune favors the prepared mind.

— Louis Pasteur

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

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

Reality Check

Warnings don’t get headlines, crises do.

— Anderson Cooper

Be Prepared

The New Public Health

Marching Song

Critical Issue

How do I keep my family safe?

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.

Public Health Response

Local Public HealthResponse

(Complexity)

Societal pressure

Communitycrisis and priorities

National agenda

Strategicchallenges

Leadership and Preparednessin Crisis Situations

Bioterrorism: Competencies for Leaders (1 of 2)

1. Describe the chain of command and management system.

2. Communicate public health information/roles/capacities/legal authority accurately to all emergency response partners.

3. Maintain regular communication with emergency response partners.

Competencies for Leaders (2 of 2)

4. Assure that the agency has an updated written plan.

5. Assure that the agency regularly practices all parts of emergency response.

6. Evaluate every emergency response drill.

7. Assure that knowledge and skills are transmitted to others.

Who Is in Charge?

Bioterrorism or

disaster event

Incident Command System

Collaboration Collaboration

No collaboration

New Partnerships

• Emergency management system

• Police departments

• Fire departments

• Emergency medical system

• Community health centers

• FBI

• Local public health department

• Department of Homeland Security

New Models of Collaboration

• Share work.

• Maintain organizational identities.

• Take advantage of synergy.

Changing Ways to Work

• Core workers

• Specialists

• General workers

• Community residents

Measures of Success in Collaborative Leadership

• Communication

• Assessment

• Conflict management

• Trust development

• Decision making

• Management of safety concerns

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.

Relationship between Risk Communication and Crisis Communication

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

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.

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.

Knowledge of the Law

• Police powers

• Personal rights

• Confidentiality—HIPAA

Question Three

Does your community have a comprehensive crisis communication plan?

1. Yes

2. No

3. Maybe

New Leadership Skills for New Times

Major Crisis Leadership Lessons* (1 of 3)

1. Prepare for at least one crisis in each crisis family.

2. It is not sufficient to prepare for crises that are normal in community.

3. Prepare for the simultaneous occurrence of multiple crises.

4. The purpose of definitions are to guide, not predict.

*(Mitroff)

Major Crisis Leadership Lessons (2 of 3)

5. Every type of crisis can happen to every organization.

6. No type of crisis should be taken literally.

7. Tampering is the most generic form or type of crisis.

8. No crisis ever happens as one plans for it.

9. Traditional risk analysis is both dangerous and misleading.

Major Crisis Leadership Lessons (3 of 3)

10. Every crisis is capable of being both cause and the effect of any other crisis.

11. Crisis leadership is systemic.

12. Perform a systemic crisis audit of your agency and community.

13. Crisis leaders not only recognize the validity of all types of crisis, but they also see the interconnections between them.

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

Leadership Will Involve Working at All Levels of the System

Summary Question

Are you both able and willing to take a leadership role in your community during a future crisis?

1. Yes

2. No