Incident Management above the Incident Management Team
Failure in emergency incident management coordination in major events has long been recognised in both national and international literature. In large events breakdowns of information flow, and in particular breakdowns in coordination above the IMT are both common and always problematic.
The findings from the Royal Commission indicate a need to look beyond creating new standard operating procedures or adding to existing role responsibilities. They indicate that, despite the good work that has occurred in the past to build a robust inter-service incident management system, the first point of breakdown is typically in communication and coordination in overwhelming events. This project is seeking to better understand how multi-agency emergency management coordination above the IMT level can be improved in order to reduce the consequences to communities of the emergency event.
The research questions
- How has a lack of shared mental models by key personnel in emergency incident management led to breakdowns in coordination in previous incidents?
- How is emergency management coordination above the IMT organised?
- How does information flow to and from regional and state levels of emergency management influence the capacity of personnel to adjust emerging conditions?
- How might we best train and educate personnel in the most effective emergency management coordination above the IMT?
- What social networks of communication best facilitate effective multi-agency coordination?
- What changes are needed to support effective command and control at the regional and state levels of command and control and multi-agency coordination?
Review WIKI
A WIKI has been set-up to help researchers and end-users review the progress of this project. Those involved in this review have been issued with a password to gain access to this WIKI:
