Unit Code: EMN952

Unit Name: Disaster and Major Incident Management in Emergency Nursing

Description: This course describes the board categories of mass casualty incidents, both natural and human caused. Major incidents are defined with regards to their size and effect on the health services, in other words any occurrence that presents a serious threat to the health of the community, disruption to the health services, or causes (or is likely to cause) numbers or types of casualties that mean that regular health services will be overwhelmed. The course will explore and enable emergency nursing clinicians to understand a command and control structure, safety, communication, scene assessment, triage sieve and sort, treatment and transportation. The course also covers pre-hospital management in a major incident and CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) incidents. The overall learning experience will allow emergency nursing clinicians to be able to work with inter agency and other stakeholders and understand their roles in response to a major, mass casualty incident.

Learning Target Outcomes: On successful completion of this course, the students will be able to: 1. Describe the challenges and issues associated with disaster and major incident management in Fiji and the region 2. Explain the need for high-quality, safe and evidence-based care in a disaster and major incident 3. Analyse the roles of the various players in the case of a major incident or disaster 4. Evaluate relevant command and control structures used in the management of major incident or disaster 5. Plan for an effective disaster response in both hospitals and in communities 6. Demonstrate competence in key disaster skills such as scene assessment, effective communication, advanced triage, sieve and sort of patients 7. Work effectively in multidisciplinary teams to arrange transport and treatment of casualties from major incident or disaster 8. Explore and evaluate existing business continuity plans in order to asses their utility and make recommendations for improvements 9. Effectively manages disaster sites, especially in cases of chemical-biological-radiological incidents 10. Maximise the safety of health care staff and first responders 11. Develop a plan that will ensure that local staff are well trained and able to respond to disaster in a timely and efficient manner

Prerequisite: N/A

Prerequisite Sentence: N/A

Credit Point: 30

Offered In: Semester 1,2