Incident Command Models in the US, the UK, Qatar Essay

Introduction

In the modern world, various types of disasters and natural hazards may pose a considerable danger to human lives, as well as cause serious harm to property. To minimize the adverse impact of such incidents, different disaster management systems exist that allow for coordinating collaborative efforts aimed at disaster response and mitigation. This paper aims to consider three such systems, or incident command models: those used in the U.S., the U.K., and the State of Qatar. The objectives of this paper include discussing each of these systems separately and then comparing them; making some conclusions based on this discussion and comparison; and providing several recommendations that could be used to improve these systems.

Scope

The current paper will consider the basic features and the structure of the three incident command models or systems: the National Incident Management System (the U.S.), the Joint Decision Making Model (the U.K.), and The National Command Centre (Qatar). It will also compare these systems and provide some recommendations on how to improve them. However, the discussion will not go into technical nuances about the operation of these systems, but rather focus on their main features, structure, and functions.

Comparison of the Models

The U.S.: National Incident Management System (NIMS)

In the U.S., the National Incident Management System (NIMS) is used. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), NIMS is a proactive, systematic approach which is aimed at guiding all types of governmental, non-governmental, and private organizations to manage all kinds of incidents, hazards, and threats, whatever their size, complexity, or location may be, to lower the incident’s harm to life, property, and the environment (FEMA 2017b).

NIMS thus supplies a common approach for addressing incidents (FEMA 2017a). This approach includes the Incident Command System (ICS), which is a standard method of managing organizations aimed at the administration of various resources during incidents (ASPCApro n.d.). In cases where organizations and institutions adopt the ICS, they create a command structure by the ICS that comes into play when incidents take place. This command structure is led either by a Unified Command, that is, a team of professionals from various departments of the whole structure, or by an Incident Commander. The leader(s) formulate(s) objectives aimed at resolving the incident and approves orders for allocating resources to various departments.

The rest of the structure remains the same in all situations, and it is comprised of four major functional areas. These areas are:

1. Operations (defines, assigns, and controls the use of resources that are required to accomplish the goals of the incident management efforts);
2. Planning (tracks the utilization of the resources);
3. Logistics (is responsible for the delivery of the resources that were assigned);
4. Finance and Administration (acquires the needed resources and pays for them) (ASPCApro n.d.).

These five areas (the four named areas plus the leadership) can be further categorized into fifteen emergency support functions, and every one of these functions is related to specific activities aimed at responding to emergencies:

1. transport;
2. public works and engineering;
3. communications;
4. fire fighting;
5. emergency management;
6. resource support;
7. mass care, human services, and housing;
8. urban Search & Rescue operations;
9. public health and medicine;
10. agriculture and natural resources;
11. oil and hazardous materials response;
12. energy;
13. long-term recovery and mitigation efforts;
14. public security and safety;
15. external communications (ASPCApro n.d.).

Apart from ICS, NIMS includes Multiagency Coordination Systems (MACS) and Public Information (PI) (U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2008). Multiagency coordination is a process permitting more effectual collaborative work between various agencies, and MACS are often created to define how these agencies will work together and how they will coordinate their efforts above the field level in case of an emergency (although collaboration may occur even without MACS protocols) (U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2008). Finally, PI comprises procedures, processes, and systems that are aimed at providing timely communication of accessible and accurate information about an incident in the required areas. The PI system identifies the main information that is to be communicated, creates messages including this key information, prioritizes the messages, and disseminates them to the target audiences (U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2008).

NIMS thus provides a comprehensive system of methods and structures that is to be utilized by organizations of all types to address the issues about an ongoing incident to minimize its harmful impact.

The U.K.: Joint Decision Making Model (JDMM)

The Joint Decision Making Model (JDMM), or Joint Decision Model, is a system that is aimed at providing methods for synthesizing the available information, setting priorities, and collaboratively making decisions that would allow for effectively resolving an adverse situation (JESIP n.d.). Figure 1 below visualizes the essence of this approach (College of Policing 2016). It is noteworthy that the model is circular, which means that how adverse situations should be addressed in the future has to take into account the experience of dealing with similar emergencies. Also, the central element (working together) sets collaboration as a key principle of this model.

According to JDMM, during an emergency, the leaders ought to utilize the JDMM to collaboratively combine all available information, define and prioritize the objectives, and make effectual decisions that would permit attaining high-quality results. JDMM is focused on three main considerations: situation, direction, and action (College of Policing 2016). To assess the situation, it is necessary to consider what is happening, what the consequences and risks of that situation are, or maybe, what could happen further, and what is currently being done to address the situation in question.

To choose the direction, it is necessary to identify what should be achieved (in particular during the first hour of response), to formulate the aims and objectives of the response to the ongoing emergency, and to determine what priorities and values will guide the process of emergency response. Finally, to choose the action to be carried out, it is required to understand what needs to be done to resolve the given emergency and achieve the outcomes that were identified in the previous steps of the model (College of Policing 2016). It is also paramount to stress that making effective decisions requires sharing information, so entities participating in emergency management ought to communicate effectually if they are to achieve the best possible outcomes in a given situation (College of Policing 2016).

JDMM thus provides general guidelines for agents acting during an emergency on how to make decisions that would allow for optimally addressing the situation and minimizing its adverse outcomes.

Qatar: The National Command Centre (NCC)

In the State of Qatar, the National Command Centre (NCC) was established to manage and coordinate efforts aimed at responding to emergencies on both the national and the local scales (Ministry of Interior n.d.). This organization collaborates with a variety of national agencies to assess ongoing emergencies, make effective decisions, and carry out the proper response efforts; the agencies involved include the Ministry of Interior, the Emergency Service Centre, the Internal Security Forces, as well as the Hamad Medical Corporation (which provides the ambulance services all across the State of Qatar) (Ebrahim & Osama 2014). The primary function of the NCC is to provide an effective flow of information between the above-mentioned agencies involved in emergency response, thus enabling a more efficacious emergency response.

For this purpose, a Unified Geospatial Infrastructure (known by its Arabic abbreviation as NJM) was created. NJM is a geographic security system that is built on the ArcGIS platform and includes a wide range of various applications, as well as a unified database of information about the geography of the region (Ebrahim & Osama 2014). NJM allows for combining all the functions of NCC into a single, unified system, thus providing NCC with the possibility to share information among the agencies involved and to formulate an adequate response to an ongoing disaster or emergency (Ebrahim & Osama 2014). In the case of an ongoing emergency, a certain sequence of steps is followed to share essential information and dispatch operatives to address the hazardous situation as it is taking place, as well as to constantly provide these operatives with new important information about the incident (Ebrahim & Osama 2014).

NCC of Qatar is thus a center whose function is to provide an effectual flow of information between emergency response agents during an incident to optimize their performance and allow for better cooperation, thus permitting more effectual harm prevention and disaster mitigation efforts.

Comparison

On the whole, it should be stressed that the U.S. NIMS is the most comprehensive system of the three emergency response systems which were considered. NIMS provides a universal management structure that is to be adopted by any organization, be it governmental, non-governmental, or private, during an emergency, and which is then to oversee and coordinate the emergency response efforts undertaken by that organization. NIMS also permits coordination of the efforts undertaken by various organizations and provides a system for delivering the information about an ongoing emergency to the public.

On the other hand, the U.K. JDMM appears to provide only the basic model and principles upon which emergency response efforts are to be based. It should be noted, though, that JDMM is capable of enabling the leaders of the organizations involved in emergency response to cooperate effectually, thus allowing for highly efficacious collaborative efforts. Also, JDMM overtly includes the element of reviewing past actions, thus letting the agents involved take into account previous experiences, including both successes and failures, meaning that the future response efforts should be more advanced than the past ones.

Finally, when it comes to Qatar NCC, it should be observed that this center is intended to facilitate the flow of information between the agents involved in disaster management. Even though NCC appears to lack the comprehensiveness of NIMS, which provides detailed protocols and courses of action for all the parties involved, NCC is still capable of effectively coordinating the institutions participating in disaster management in Qatar, and thus considerably improving disaster management efforts in that country.

Conclusion

It is therefore clear that each of the three countries (the U.S., the U.K., and Qatar) has its system aimed at managing disasters and natural hazards, and providing a timely and effective response to them. It is apparent that the American NIMS may be considered the most comprehensive system of the three, as it allows for sharing information, allocating and managing resources, and coordinating collaborative efforts during disaster response. On the other hand, the British JDMM only supplies methods for sharing information and making decisions for managing an ongoing emergency, whereas the Qatari NCC is primarily a platform that allows for sharing information and coordinating disaster response.

Recommendations

It might be possible to provide several recommendations to improve the British JDMM scheme. In particular, it seems advisable to integrate into it a description of a structure that could be created in every organization to manage incident response, and which would come into play when a disaster occurs. The same could be recommended for Qatari NCC, only the latter should also create more defined systems and schemes for making decisions and coordinating efforts aimed at disaster response and mitigation. As for the American NIMS, it already appears to be the most advanced system of the three, so it may serve as a model for improving the other two incident command models in the future.

Reference List

ASPCApro n.d., Understanding NIMS and ICS. Web.

College of Policing 2016, Civil emergencies: command, control and coordination. Web.

Ebrahim, AH & Osama, M 2014, Qatar enters a new era of emergency response and proactive security. Web.

FEMA 2017a, National incident management system. Web.

FEMA 2017b, NIMS doctrine supporting guides & tools. Web.

JESIP n.d., Arrangements for joint working (Joint Decision Model). Web.

Ministry of Interior n.d., Central operations department. Web.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2008, National incident management system. Web.