Continuity of Health Services in Emergencies Training Course

Participants can establish command, coordination and reporting arrangements for health-service disruptions.

• Incident Command System functions: command, operations, planning, logistics and finance
• Activate emergency operations centre arrangements and incident action planning
• Hospital Incident Command System roles for facility-level coordination
• Define decision rights, escalation thresholds and delegated clinical authority
• Situation reports using agreed indicators, actions, constraints and requests
• Coordination cell routines linking public health, hospitals and ambulance services
• Demobilisation criteria and handover records after acute response operations

Participants can define and rank essential services for continuation under constrained conditions.

• Essential health services package defined by population needs and risks
• Prioritisation matrix scoring life-saving value, time sensitivity and feasibility
• Service continuity tiers for primary care, hospitals and referral networks
• Clinical prioritisation for maternal care, immunisation, NCDs and mental health
• Define minimum service standards, hours, staffing and catchment coverage
• Referral pathway redesign when transport, diagnostics or specialist capacity fail
• Document suspension, restoration triggers and patient communication requirements

Participants can plan additional workforce, bed and care capacity while maintaining safe operations.

• Surge capacity model using staff, stuff, structure and systems
• Bed capacity calculations for isolation, triage, inpatient and observation areas
• Staff redeployment matrices matched to competencies, licences and fatigue limits
• Task shifting safeguards, supervision ratios and scope-of-practice controls
• Roster design for extended operations, rest cycles and staff welfare
• Alternate care sites assessed for safety, workflow and clinical governance
• Mutual aid agreements for personnel, beds, blood and equipment

Participants can establish supply controls that protect critical commodities during disruption.

• End-to-end supply chain mapping for medicines, oxygen, PPE and cold chain
• Consumption-based quantification using caseload, treatment protocols and buffer stock
• Reorder points, safety stock and pipeline monitoring under disruption
• Oxygen system continuity: source, storage, distribution, flow and maintenance
• Cold-chain contingency procedures for vaccines, temperature excursions and backup power
• Supplier contingency arrangements, framework agreements and ethical procurement controls
• Inventory visibility through stock cards, electronic systems and physical counts

Participants can identify facility vulnerabilities and prepare practical infrastructure continuity measures.

• Facility risk assessment covering structural, non-structural and functional safety
• WHO Hospital Safety Index concepts for prioritising corrective actions
• Utility failure plans for power, water, sanitation, communications and fuel
• Fire, evacuation and shelter-in-place procedures for patients requiring assistance
• Zoning, access control and crowd management during mass-casualty arrivals
• Business continuity arrangements for laboratories, pharmacies, records and billing
• Recovery priorities after facility damage, contamination or prolonged closure

Participants can maintain essential care while applying public health and infection-control measures.

• All-hazards outbreak control integrated with routine essential service delivery
• Standard precautions, transmission-based precautions and healthcare waste management
• Screening and triage flows separating infectious and non-infectious patients
• Surveillance indicators for outbreaks, mortality, service use and stockouts
• Risk communication messages addressing care-seeking, stigma and misinformation
• Community health worker roles in follow-up, referral and medication continuity
• Water, sanitation and hygiene controls protecting patients, staff and carers

Participants can construct a health-service continuity plan with clear recovery priorities and activation controls.

• Continuity plan structure aligned with ISO 22301 requirements
• Business impact analysis identifying maximum tolerable downtime and dependencies
• Recovery time objectives for critical clinical and administrative processes
• Dependency mapping for workforce, utilities, suppliers, data and transport
• Scenario plans for floods, outbreaks, conflict, cyberattack and heatwaves
• Plan activation checklists, communications trees and decision logs
• Version control, approval authority and scheduled plan review cycles

Participants can monitor continuity performance and convert incident evidence into service improvements.

• Minimum dataset for service availability, utilisation, quality and equity
• Health management information system reporting during disrupted connectivity
• Indicator dashboard design for continuity, surge, referral and supply status
• Data quality checks: completeness, timeliness, consistency and outlier review
• Disaggregate service data by sex, age, disability and displacement
• Patient record continuity, confidentiality and data-protection safeguards
• After-action review methods converting incident evidence into improvements

Participants can prepare funded improvement actions and a practical continuity implementation plan.

• Emergency health financing sources, expenditure controls and donor restrictions
• Costed continuity plan linking priorities, resources, owners and timelines
• Rapid procurement documentation supporting audit trails and value for money
• Claims, reimbursement and financial reporting for emergency service delivery
• Recovery planning from service backlog, workforce strain and deferred maintenance
• After-action review findings converted into funded improvement actions
• Personal 90-day application plan with milestones and stakeholder commitments

Participants should understand how health services, facilities, public health programmes or supply functions operate. Emergency response experience is helpful but not required, and the course does not require a clinical qualification or prior Incident Command System training.

Bring examples of current continuity plans, emergency procedures, service data, referral arrangements or supply issues if your employer permits sharing them. A laptop is useful for live online delivery and helpful in classroom sessions, but it is not mandatory.

It is designed for hospital and clinic managers, ministry and district health officials, public health emergency coordinators, humanitarian health managers and health supply chain personnel. It is most useful for staff who influence preparedness, service delivery or emergency operational decisions.

General emergency management concentrates on multi-agency response structures, while disaster medicine often focuses on clinical management of casualties. This course concentrates on maintaining essential health services, including continuity planning, workforce, facilities, supplies, referrals, information and recovery.

Participants can use the templates to assess priority services, identify dependencies, set recovery objectives and clarify escalation arrangements. The 90-day application plan provides a structured starting point for discussions with operational, clinical and senior management colleagues.

Each day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides approximately 6.5 contact hours. The five days progress through ten teaching modules, combining instructor input, cases, planning tasks, simulations and application planning.