NURS FPX 6020 Assessment 2 Disaster Management Plan Presentation

Student Name

Capella University

NURS-FPX6020 A2

Prof. Name

Submission Date

Disaster Management Plan Presentation

Slide 1: 

Hi, I am Shannon Wesson, and today I’ll be presenting a disaster management plan addressing infection control risks following Hurricane Helene. Hurricane Helene’s devastating flooding in western NC demonstrated an urgent need for a coordinated infection control plan (ICP). Damaged infrastructure, contaminated water sources, and isolated communities created ideal conditions for multiple threats of infectious diseases to occur. This plan includes specific evidence-based methods to reduce the risk of infection and protect vulnerable populations during future disasters of like circumstance within this area.

Slide 2: 

The first action priority will be to deploy mobile testing and treatment units to communities impacted by flooding, as contaminated water is the main source of infections, which coincides with the fact that flooding resulted in the overflow of sewer systems which have led to an increase in susceptibility to infections of some of our most vulnerable individuals (PBS News, 2024). The second action priority will be to distribute personal protective equipment (PPE), including gloves and boots to individuals involved in cleanup activities, as exposure of individuals to floodwaters places them at risk of exposure to bacteria and pathogens such as the vibrio vulnerability (ABC news, 2024). The third action priority will be to establish mobile medical units that will provide initial wound care and tetanus vaccinations for injuries sustained as a result of being exposed to debris while conducting cleanup operations, as many of these individuals may develop infections from their wounds (ABC news, 2024). The fourth action priority will be to partner with academia and local health departments to build capacity for surges and enhance local surveillance, as developing these types of partnerships is integral to disaster management; for example, Buncombe and Burke County health departments partnered with the UNC Asheville-Gillings Master of Public Health program to assist with recovery operations following Helene (Scalise et al., 2025). The fifth action priority will be to coordinate with pharmacies in order to ensure access to medications for individuals with chronic diseases, as disruptions to medicine for treatment of chronic conditions place those individuals at risk for secondary infections, and experts agree that coordinating with local pharmacies was key in managing chronic diseases following the event of flooding from Helene (Virginia Tech News, 2024).

Evidence-Based Disaster Management Plan Intervention

Slide 3:

This plan is based on previous studies that have proven successful with all types of flooding-based emergencies. Examples of such studies would include mobile water testing devices. The mobile water testing devices address the principal cause of infection identified by numerous health surveys conducted after Hurricane Helene. The problem is that customers did not take into account the potential for contamination from hidden sources of bacteria such as fecal coliform once the floodwaters had receded (PBS News, 2024). These are very specific interventions which are based on the latest scientific knowledge regarding how we spread and how we become infected with microorganisms during disasters. 

Selecting Priority Interventions

Every intervention proposed to address the specific, documented infection pathway determined in the original risk analysis. The distribution of PPE responds to high levels of bacterial infection seen when cleaning up. For instance, the CDC stated that very few immunocompromised residents of Houston were wearing respirators while cleaning up after the flood. This indicates a gap in respiratory protection for this population which this plan is trying to fill (Chow et al., 2020). By placing priority on interventions by gap in documented exposures, effectiveness of the response plan overall is enhanced.

Appropriateness of Intervention

Slide 4: 

The following interventions were evaluated due to their direct ability to mitigate the types of infections, as shown by post-disaster surveillance reports, that would be expected to have greater prevalence than others. Care of wounds and tetanus vaccine administration address the re-emerging and well-documented problem associated with flood cleanup. After Hurricane Helene, one Cedar Key site reported increasing numbers of cellulitis and lacerations and a need for tetanus within the hurt community (ABC News, 2024). This research confirms that these interventions will meet the health care requirements of the affected community in a valid manner.

Ethical Decision-Making and Inclusion of DEI

Slide 5: 

A disaster preparedness approach rooted in ethics should encompass all the people in the affected region owing to such events as the flood following Hurricane Helene; people living in remote and mountainous areas of western North Carolina fall into the category of people who have had to deal with quite a few problems in their attempts to access medical assistance because of the flood following Hurricane Helene. This is evident in the need for responsiveness, mobility, and decentralized delivery of services, since there were at least 426 road closures caused by the flooding, making it hard for people to get to loving (the nearest regional health care hub) (Horney, 2024).

Addressing Diverse Population Needs

Disaster preparations must include provisions on the care of elderly, immuno-compromised and chronically ill individuals, as each one of them will be vulnerable in its own way. They require additional assistance to enable them to receive medication, assistance in moving around and infection prevention. This need for additional assistance by the at-risk groups may be observed in the fact that the older adults have a high risk of hospitalization and lack of concentration following the floods than young adults (Ramesh et al., 2021). As a result, by including these aspects in the disaster plan, the disaster plan will ensure that proper interventions are made to save the at-risk groups from experiencing severe consequences.

Potential Biases

Slide 6:

In that case, if the use of aggregate data in the evaluation of the disaster planning process hides the existence of such inequalities, then this will lead to the neglect of marginalized people. Rural Appalachian communities have always been understudied in the field of disasters because of which they never get any relevant resources during disasters. In order to solve this problem, an initiative of collaboration between academia and health departments (Buncombe and Burke counties) took the help of place-based methodology, keeping in mind the local community context (Scalise et al., 2025).

Leading and Collaboration with Teams

Slide 7: 

For any kind of efficient response to a natural disaster, it is imperative that everyone involved understands their role and responsibilities on both the level of their agency and on a community level. Public health nurses will be very important members of the response process on the ground in terms of coordinating infection control through distributing personal protective equipment (PPE) and wound triage in communities affected by the disaster. Also, it is noted that after-action report by North Carolina has revealed many issues concerning coordination and communication among the agencies in relation to Hurricane Helene (NC Division of Emergency Management, 2025). This plan will solve this problem by clearly defining what communication and coordination task falls upon every team.

Effective collaboration among local health departments, state emergency management agencies, and federal organizations such as FEMA is vital for implementing this project. The clear points of interaction between these agencies will eliminate duplicate efforts and fill in any gaps in resource availability. 

Infection Control Measures Implementation

Slide 8: 

In order to effectively implement infection control, leadership is required to determine how the use of PPE will be done and how they will be distributed. The logistics team will arrange the distribution chain while the clinical team will check that there is proper use of PPE by both the responders and the residents. According to a report compiled by the CDC on areas affected by floods (Chow et al., 2020), the use of rubber boots, gloves, and goggles becomes very important in case it is impossible not to come into contact with the floodwater. 

Evaluating Emergency Preparedness and Readiness

Slide 9: 

Evaluation of disaster preparedness at the state level reveals both strengths and weaknesses in the State’s capacity for handling disaster events in North Carolina as evidenced through the strengths and weaknesses of the State’s disaster response to Hurricane Helene.

Strengths in Current Response Systems

Slide 10: 

One critical role of having the partnership of universities or colleges with the local public health department is that they can enhance the emergency preparedness resources which would be necessary in a public health emergency (e.g. floods, earthquake, etc.). With such partnerships, highly skilled individuals can be easily allocated to the overworked system of the local health departments. It is evident that the partnerships of the academic health department in Buncombe and Burke Counties have been instrumental in establishing context-based responses for public health emergencies in Buncombe and Burke Counties (Scalise et al., 2025). By creating a similar partnership in other underserved regions, we could better prepare the system.

Weaknesses Requiring Improvement

Slide 11:

Although advances have been made in terms of inter-agency communication and distribution procedures since the 1970s, there are still some critical issues to address. There were several reasons why delays and ineffective responses occurred during the crucial first days after the disaster struck. As a North Carolina report states, there are three issues in which poor communication and competition for resources are seen as stresses that need to be tested on a regular basis (NC Division of Emergency Management, 2025). Thus, this plan requires such exercises.

Communication Plan

Slide 12: 

It is therefore very important that there is a communication protocol between the various health services agencies that outlines how patient records are shared among the various response teams. The collaboration among the public health nurses, FEMA representatives, and local health departments needs real-time data exchange. As revealed by the after-action review of January 2023, there were “major failures” in the communication process during the various responses of North Carolina to Hurricane Helene through primary, secondary and alternative methods of inter-agency communication (Toda et al., 2023). It is therefore clear that through a standardized communication protocol, information losses will be minimized. 

Evaluation Process

Slide 13: 

For the assessment of the efficacy of the communication used in the disaster response, it is important to examine some documented examples of breakdown of communications during real-life disaster response operations. Based on some of the documentation of the situation related to the communication problems that existed, there was failure of various coordination centers to be able to exchange situational awareness during the response to Hurricane Helene. A formal review confirmed various problems that resulted from poor coordination among agencies due to lack of interoperability and/or data management (NC Division of Emergency Management, 2025). There were identified certain deficiencies in lack of a proper plan for implementation of any new communication protocols in future disasters.

Recommendations for Improvements

Slide 14: 

The number one priority for improvements related to interagency collaboration by means of enhancing innovation and interoperability, as seen from the results of this evaluation, is the enhancement of the capacity of the teams to conduct joint training sessions on a regular basis, in order to assess the performance of the teams’ telecommunications system through a range of disaster simulation scenarios. The evaluation conducted in North Carolina revealed that regular quarterly meetings of all Section Chiefs and External Stakeholders need to be conducted in order to keep the teams ready (Khan, et al, 2022). 

Pros and Cons

Slide 15: As seen from above, each of these improvements has its advantages as well as drawbacks while applying in reality. Scheduling of regular meeting times for the collaborating organizations in the process of creating the cooperation between these organizations requires lots of time and consumes a large amount of organizational resources of each organization taking part in the process. Every organization should realize that a lot of efforts will be required by them in order to establish a cooperating relationship and train their employees on how to apply the suggestions made in the report (Toda et al., 2023).Each agency should also be aware that balancing the benefits of the proposed enhancements against the challenges of implementing the enhancements will help both agencies to achieve meeting the recommendations identified through the work provided in the report as useful processes for both partnering agencies.  

Conclusion

Slide 16: 

An evidence-based disaster management plan helps to assess the risk of infectious disease spread during Hurricane Helene for many different communities via an actionable approach based on DEI principles, interprofessional collaboration, and system-level evaluations of both immediate and structural vulnerabilities. Partnership development through increased communication protocols between academic institutions and healthcare organizations can strengthen future hurricane preparedness. All of these elements support response team efforts to safeguard at-risk populations from dangerous events in the future.