Natural Disaster Management Research

It from the dedication of different experts that people can nowadays be forewarned about pending natural disasters, but the fact remains that people will never be a hundred percent ready when the natural disasters strike. The united states of America, for example, has a history of these sudden and unfortunate disasters. Disasters will always leave behind a number of causalities, and it remains the duty of health providers to offer the much-needed care to the survivors. Health practitioners, regardless of their expertise, will always be called upon during and after natural disasters hit. These health experts play different roles in helping communities that have suffered the aftermath of a natural disaster. Natural disasters are characterized by the unpredictability and unfamiliarity nature.

Other features of the catastrophes include threat, speed, urgency, and uncertainty. To understand the nature and extent of a natural calamity, it is of high importance that one does proper research on the origin of the disaster. It is for this reason that the natural hazards are classified into three groups according to their origin (Baack & Alfred, 2013). First, there are cyclones, tornadoes, hurricanes, storms, and hailstorms. Hurricanes are always characterized by heavy rains, floods, strong and high winds and tornadoes. Apart from these few, the hurricanes will potentially cause storm surges and tidal flooding. The storm surges and tidal flooding that is known to cause more damages and is responsible for more than ninety percent deaths in the united states of America.

Normally, few or no community will be able to deal with effects of a hurricane. A community is likely to seek external help to enable it to cope with the effects of a natural disaster like the hurricanes. Different teams of people with different expertise are often assembled to respond after the occurrence of a natural disaster. The first response will always come from the security personnel and the health practitioners. Learning from the previous natural disasters, it important now than ever to train more nurses. The nurses should be prepared to deal with different natural disaster-related problems. Health practitioners should have the necessary knowledge and abilities to help the affected communities. These guidelines aim to work as a standard set of skills in disaster nursing for the worldwide health professionals.

The framework is made to be flexible and can be changed to suit different communities with different needs. Additionally, the framework covers the four parts of disaster management. It corresponds to the prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery stages. Nurses play vital roles when preparing a natural disaster strategic plan. The MAPP is used in prioritizing the needs of a community and makes sure that all needs are addressed in the process of making a community a safer place. Risk management in health care has more far-reaching advantages than it does in other industries. Normally, an organization will implement strategies that will help it prevent and mitigate financial issues. It is the same principle that healthcare organizations use only that in healthcare; the focus will be more on patient safety (Schultz, Koenig, Whiteside & Murray, 2012).

Risk management carries so much weight in the health sector because it can be the thin line between life and death. The community can be prepared on simple first aid techniques in case of injuries or accidents during and after a disaster. Since responding to an emergency is a collective role for both the health professionals and the community, the community members can be trained to identify any early signs of a disaster (Schultz, Koenig, Whiteside & Murray, 2012). The community members should be encouraged to report any noticeable signs. The second step will be to come up with the proper ways of collecting and keeping accurate and complete information of the community. The information might include health determinants, number of people within the area of interest, and the extent of damage done by the disaster (Wall, 2015).

After all that is done, the health practitioners should now focus on dealing with the unavoidable risks. This should be done with great speed and accuracy. The final step of this strategic plan will involve the handling of complaints and evaluation of the success of the response to the disaster. This is done to ensure the community will not continue suffering from the effects of a natural disaster. A natural disaster strategic plan is a non-ending process as the health practitioners will always be monitoring the community needs. It is evident and obvious that patient safety should be the priority for all health professionals. Monitoring of a strategic plan is imperative as the plan might need some adjustments. Nurses play important roles during, before, and after the occurrence of a natural disaster as explained in the paper.