Metrics for Improving Incident Management

THE CHALLENGE

Incident management is often closely associated with federal doctrine such as the Incident Command System  and the National Incident Management System. However, conflating doctrine with activity risks turns incident management into a box-ticking exercise.

To help incident managers improve their public health incident management activities we created a functionally-oriented framework and set of metrics for measuring incident management performance, which we packed into an easy-to-use toolkit to be deployed across the United States.

THE APPROACH

- Partnerships with 30+ public health agencies

- Interviews and literature review to develop framework conceptualizing core incident management activities

- Development of incident management measurement metrics and toolkit based on framework

- User experience evaluation of metrics and toolkit with public health agencies during real-life incidents

- Toolkit finalization based on evaluations

- Rollout across the country

THE OUTCOME

$2M CDC-funded project resulting in toolkit now used nationally and publications in academic journals.

Further Reading

The Incident Management Measurement Toolkit. RAND Corporation

A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Incident Management Systems During Public Health Emergencies. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness

The Incident Management Measurement Tool: A tool for measuring public health incident management during and after emergencies. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness

Five Key Domains of Incident Management. Domestic Preparedness