Interdisciplinary crisis management for public health and health care professionals

Background: The need for interdisciplinary training has been increasing in recent years.  Public health curricula cannot be late to respond to the growing needs of graduate students and the evolving workforce.  The roles of public health and health care professionals are evolving and in order to properly respond, they must be trained in an interdisciplinary environment with a focus on crisis management.

The purpose of the course is to introduce the interdisciplinary health care learner to specific principles of epidemiology and disaster medicine, employing an all-hazards framework, to provide essential skills that enable proper functioning in the event a catastrophe arises.  The course is scenario-based, implementing lessons from recent, real-world disasters and epidemics with extensive use of simulation medicine and an interdisciplinary team approach.  They will be introduced to an unusual infectious disease, develop a diagnosis, and perform an epidemiologic investigation to determine both its source and attempt to prevent further spread and the possibility of a pandemic. 

Disasters occur everywhere and this simulation-based and collaborative experience will provide students skills that many of their colleagues are unlikely to possess.  Interdisciplinary teams allow them to properly understand the roles of each professional in a health crisis and work together in a seamless manner.  Students will become knowledgeable and experienced in crisis management.  This will include Incident Command System (ICS) training and communicating with the media during various disaster scenarios.  Becoming an effective communicator is not only important within the health care facility but also among the citizens of a community.