WGU D548 Task 1: Comprehensive Emergency Response | 2025/2026 Latest Update with complete solutions.

Western Governors University Zakayia Johnson Mentor: Nick Gera D548 – Emergency Management and Planning in Healthcare Professor Kelly Roese June 11, 2025D548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 2 Comprehensive Emergency Response Planning for Western View Hospital in an Urban Context Situated in the heart of a densely populated urban area, Western View Hospital is one of the region's largest and most sophisticated healthcare systems. With over 800 beds and specialized services, including a Level I trauma center, medical and pediatric units, and a global research institute, the hospital faces many potential hazards and risks in its operating environment. While the geography allows optimal patient access for the hospital and the community it serves, it also means that the hospital operates at risk of spills of hazardous materials, loss of power, and surges in patient numbers during emergencies. This paper considers the response planning and decision-making of Western View Hospital through a scenario-based perspective, specifically a chemical spill incident connected to a train derailment nearby. Strategies for Emergency Scenarios Hazardous Chemical Spill (Man-Made) Due to Western View Hospital's proximity to freight train lines and heavily traveled roadways, there is a very real threat of experiencing a hazardous chemical spill. If this occurs, Western View Hospital will have to implement its HAZMAT protocol immediately, which consists of notifying the local fire department, public health department, and environmental protection department. Once this has been implemented, the hospital will establish a perimeter to control exposure and alter or shut down the hospital's HVAC system to control the distribution of airborne contaminants. Ensuring that all the staff are prepared is crucial. During the planning process, all departments will receive yearly mandatory HAZMAT awareness training, and the ER staff,D548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 3 security, and facilities teams will receive different operations-level training. The annual training will include donning and doffing PPE, dealing with contaminated patients, and establishing hot/warm/cold zones on the facility campus. Mobile decontamination units will be available and sited in various zones of the facility- most commonly. The ambulance bay or another area in the parking lot. The hospital will conduct simulation activities to model spills during certain seasons because wind and temperature will change the toxic sculpture/diffusion. The staff will conduct tabletop exercises seasonally. Urban Flooding (Natural) In addition, Western View's urban campus is vulnerable to urban flooding due to aging city infrastructure and seasonal storms. The event of heavy rains or sewer overflow will prompt the hospital's emergency operations center (EOC) to be activated to manage flood response. Sandbags will be pre-deployed to entry points, and flood gates will be locked down in the basement of the hospital and sub-ground spaces with utilities. Electrical and medical equipment and stock in lower-level spaces will be moved by maintenance to higher ground in preparation for the annual storm season. The hospital's facilities management and maintenance teams have received annual training for flood response, including the initial start-up of the pump systems, directions for shutting down electrical systems, and directions for stormwater runoff. Hospital emergency kits have been distributed to all critical departments (with flashlights, radios and containers for dry storage). The hospital has completed infrastructure audits and drainage system evaluations in anticipation of rainy seasons (typically late fall and spring). Nursing and emergency staff have been trained to support vertical evacuation of patients if flooding negatively impacts patient careD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 4 in any ground unit. Mutual aid agreements with higher elevation facilities allow considerations for transferring any noncritical patients if possible. Cyberattacks on Hospital Information Systems (Man-Made) Furthermore, as a technologically sophisticated and internationally known research hospital, Western View is a target for cyber incidents that could harm EHR systems, communications capabilities, and life-sustaining devices. The incident response process begins with activation of the Cyber Incident Response Plan (CIRP), isolation of infected networks, notification of internal IT Security teams, and engagement with law enforcement and cybersecurity partners. All hospital staff must complete quarterly cybersecurity awareness training, which includes phishing identification, password hygiene, and secure standard operating procedures for interacting with sensitive data. Clinical teams are trained to move to manual workflows rapidly, including charting patient care on paper, and incorporating procedures for offline medication checks. Biannual live drills will be conducted to simulate a cyber incident affecting EHR and phone systems, and there will be a secure offline backup of patient records. Critical equipment systems include redundancy to isolate life-supporting devices from other vulnerable networks. Routine seasonal checkups of all software and firmware will ensure that they are patched, particularly before the influenza season or winter months when patient loads are the highest and the systems are under maximum demand. Pandemic or Infectious Disease Outbreak (Natural)D548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 5 Additionally, pandemics like COVID-19 remind us that we need to be prepared for infectious disease emergencies on a long-term basis. Western View has designed a purposefully scalable infectious disease response plan, which we will activate during seasonal surges like flu season and major pandemic events. This includes creating isolation wards, infection control protocols, and using dedicated isolation wards with negative-pressure doors to contain airborne pathogens. All our clinical staff and custodial staff are required to attend semi-annual infection control compliance training, which covers duties like the proper use of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), protocols for putting on and taking off PPE, protocol for exposure reporting, etc. We have also trained staff about the initial presentation of early signs of infectious disease potential in our triage critical care nurses. Numerous staff are cross-trained to facilitate movement to new locations in the case of a staff shortage due to illness or burnout. The hospital maintains a minimum of a 60-day supply of PPE, antivirals, and cleaning supplies, which are on a rotation basis and supplanted before flu season. In the seasonal protocols, we set up screening stations at the entrances of the facility during periods of high transmission and increase the use of telemedicine, which decreases the number of patients exposed to in-person care. A key focus of our communication is the public's knowledge during potential infectious disease outbreaks. Therefore, we ensure multilingual signs, a text alert system, and active and engaged social media updates to inform our patients and the communities we serve. Our infectious disease prevention efforts help to ensure that all the population we serve is protected from infection, including vulnerable populations with diminished English or reading literacy. Mass Casualty Event from Transit Accident (Man-Made)D548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 6 Finally, Being at an intersection and transportation corridor, Western View must anticipate mass casualty incidents (MCIs) such as bus crashes, multi-vehicle crashes, train derailments, etc. On activation of the Mass Casualty Incident Plan, the hospital will initiate external triage areas, converting lobbies or conference rooms into 'patient' areas, giving all clinical staff triage tags in different colors to color code the level of injury and response was rapid. Security staff will assist with crowd control, separating the contaminated trauma patients for general hospital flow. As bed spaces fill, the ambulance zones are expanded into neighboring parking lots. The Transport Liaison Officer coordinates with EMS to sort incoming patients using bed availability. All clinical staff must do annual MCI and triage process training with models such as START (Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment). Western View can also conduct joint simulation drills with city emergency services, transport authorities, and regional hospitals every six months. One of the drills will be a cold weather event, and the other will be a high-volume traffic event in the summer. In the context of any given year, staff recognize that commuter traffic and the volume of pedestrians fluctuate because of the season. Staff are also learning psychological first aid because many of the MCI patients arrive emotionally distraught. Impact of an Unexpected Power Outage During Peak Hours Consequences in the event of a quick power outage at Western View Hospital in peak hours would be adverse, especially relating to patient care in critical units that include intensive care, operating rooms, and neonatal units. Patients in serious need, such as those undergoing surgical procedures, dialysis treatment, or individual emergency response, could be most at risk, especially when clinical teams are inserting iodinated media in mid-procedure when a powerD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 7 outage emerges. Life sustaining devices such as ventilators, infusion hugs, and cardiac monitoring equipment critically depend upon constant power, which means discovering how or when to switch over current power systems to backup systems could endanger lives. Equally important, the backup generators in the hospital can run several essential systems through various priority designations. However, they are often provided power to only selected areas and insufficiently provide backup power for diagnostic or ancillary service areas. Imaging devices such as CT scan devices, MRI devices, or X-ray devices require full power to function, which results in delays when emergencies arise and timely diagnoses are needed. Further, automated lab devices such as centrifuges and electronic medication dispenser devices would fail to operate until full power is resumed, requiring staff to revert to manual processes of analysis and processing that would increase turnaround times significantly, jeopardizing patient safety and their health service experience. It would not only be the backup generators that are the issue, but also the communication systems. Phones, nurse call buttons, intercoms, and internet-based systems would be impacted too, impairing the departments and their ability to communicate further. Staff would have no access to electronic health records (EHR) and would need to use pen and paper for documentation, which increases the risk of medical error and delays in care. Diagnostic equipment (CT scanners, lab analyzers) would likely shut down or have downtime, which increases delays in diagnosis and treatment timelines. Similarly, administrative processes, including admissions, discharges, financials, and pharmacy functions, would be adversely affected, delayed, or stopped altogether. The use of temperature-sensitive medications, in particular, would be in jeopardy if it took too long toD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 8 restore the storage capabilities of many of these medications. Similarly, the discharge of patients may lead to delays in emergency care areas if there are bottlenecks in discharges when patients cannot leave due to continued institutional delays. Application of 3 Emergency Management Principles To begin, preparedness is the groundwork of every resilient healthcare organization, and readiness is especially important for Western View Hospital due to its size, complexity, and urban setting. To that end, Western View Hospital needs to establish a full-scale emergency preparedness plan, including hazard vulnerability assessments, continuity of operations planning, and training and education for all staff and all levels. Because Western View is a Level I trauma center with a research and residency program, disaster preparedness must be included in clinical and academic functions. As part of an annual emergency preparedness plan, Western View should do large-scale mass casualty exercises and biannual training for new residents and rotating medical students on emergency procedures. They should also conduct annual mock exercises related to chemical spills, natural disasters, and physical infrastructure failures to later serve and identify vulnerabilities in the plan for drills, response, and communication best practices. To assist with newly established trauma processes and operations, city agencies engaged with public safety such as, the police and fire services, and hospitals should develop pre-incident coordination to identify and address uncertainties that may occur during a multiagency response. The process would inform preparedness and contingency plans, which are critically necessary in a densely populated urban environment. Secondly, the response principle refers to immediate action to save lives, property, and operations taking place during an emergency, and Western View must have rehearsed systems toD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 9 initiate a mobilization. Alert the hospital is always subject to the risk of being involved in the event of a mass casualty, as well as those hazardous materials due to its access to transportation routes. An Incident Command System (ICS) should always have a system in place to start immediately in a crisis, ensuring clear command, a coordinated response, and effective communication. For example, in the risk of a train derailing with toxic material, it would be critical to establish triage areas and decontamination areas and manage the evacuation of at-risk units during an incident, as shown through our previous assessments. The unit's plan should also recognize that the hospital has large volumes of patients and visitors with assigned roles during the crisis that would be necessary for traffic control, patient tracking, and public update processes. Given there may be many specialized units working simultaneously, e.g., pediatrics, oncology, and cardiology, it was important to coordinate with their areas had assigned teams as well as not to repeat work during the event, if possible. Eventually, recovery allows Western View Hospital to become fully operational with the most significant consideration of an emergency's longer-term physical, psychological, and operational impacts. Preparing to recover can be initiated during the response phase—the initial focus can first stabilize critical infrastructure, activate electronic systems, and re-engage services' core functions. After-action reviews (AARs) with frontline staff members and operational leadership can be invaluable to identifying learning from incidents and revising emergency plans accordingly. As an educational and research facility, Western View will have access to internal data to assess what changes occurred due to an emergency event and take this information beyond the organization to contribute to the emergency management scholarship. As a facility in an urban setting, recovery also requires considering the community—at minimum, the hospital can provide psychological support services, assist community recovery locally, and restoreD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 10 public confidence. For an organization with academic affiliations and international partners, the symbolic demonstration of transparency and resilience of the hospital post-incident can help to solidify the hospital's place as an industry leader in healthcare and trustworthy provider in the community. Potential Hazards Linked to Transportation-Related Incidents or Infrastructure Failures The nearness of Western View Hospital to a major transportation hub means exposure to substantial risk related to hazardous materials incidents. The transportation of toxic chemicals, flammable gases, or corrosive agents could release chemicals via spills or leaks into the air and/or environment within the vicinity. Western View Hospital will have a significant risk of exposure especially if the HVAC pulls in the contaminated air. Simultaneously, transportation pandemonium can block route access, creating delays for ambulances to respond to medical emergencies, and access or delivery routes for supplies or medications. Further causing consequential impacts on the hospital. Sequentially, the risk can be intensified by the possibilities of infrastructure failures such as loss of power supply and water caused by the water main break. For instance, the loss of electric power supply can affect the capacity to use medical equipment, engage electronic health records, or control the indoor climate safely. While a loss of water supply can also prevent sterilization, sanitation, or hygiene use across departments. Identifying hazards is just the first step; for risk reduction to be effective, it requires intentional and concerted action. Western View Hospital must adopt specific and multidisciplinary strategies adapted to the specific threat to protect its operations, patients, and staff. The following mitigation strategies are designed to minimize the potentially negativeD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 11 effects of the hazards identified in the risk assessment and protect the hospital from loss of function due to transport incidents or infrastructure failure. 1. Hazardous Material Exposure – Western View Hospital must establish a hazmat preparedness program that is comprehensive in scope and necessitates coordination between emergency management, clinical management, facilities management, and local public safety officials. It must also invest in modular, mobile decontamination facilities that can be quickly set up outside the emergency department and main entrances. Staff shall be trained in response procedures regarding hazardous substances, including how to correctly wear personal protective equipment (PPE) and isolate contaminated patients. Arrangements shall be made with local fire agencies, environmental response teams, and public health agencies for external assistance and information communication. Full-scale yearly hazmat exercises should be conducted to practice for department coordination and development of shelter-in-place or evacuation activities based on wind direction and plume modeling. 2. Traffic Congestion and Access Disruption for Emergency Vehicles – To cope with this problem, hospital management, hospital security, emergency medical services (EMS), and staff from the city traffic management department should form an access administration team to develop an access management plan. It should identify and mark a "back-up ambulance route," police agreements for traffic regulation to help in an emergency and note where to establish a geofenced alert system that gives realtime updates of road closures. Hospital security also needs the authority to manage traffic patterns within hospital grounds and interface with EMS when there are high volumes of people. The hospital will need to implement flexible working times andD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 12 shuttle transport options for employees to keep them in service during significant transport emergencies. This will assist medical teams in getting to work and not impacting patient flow with the roads being blocked in both directions. 3. Infrastructure Failure – Requires facilities management, biomedical engineering, clinical services, and IT to work as partners. The hospital should ensure that its backup generators, uninterruptible power supplies, and critical infrastructure redundancies are secure. Surgery, ICU, and pharmacy should utilize backup power circuits. Moreover, the hospital should ensure a safe 30 to 60-day emergency water supply, fuel, and temperature-sensitive drug storage. In addition, the facilities staff should perform semi-annual utility risk assessments. Biomedical teams make sure that their life-sustaining machines can be powered by alternative means. It must also ensure that an offline infrastructure allows IT to access patient records and communicate with staff. These measures will decrease Western View's susceptibility to cascading system failures in an infrastructure time of need. Analysis of Four Administrative and Ethical Responses Miscommunication The communication breakdown was one of, if not the, most impactful issues in the weeks following the train derailment, especially at Western View Hospital in the early hours and days, as noted in the report. Communication from Western View Hospital to the rest of the community initially downplayed the effects of the chemical spill and caused confusion as communities attempted to make sense of what was happening and whether or not they needed to evacuate. Although the errant communications caused confusion and delays, it also put patients, staff andD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 13 neighboring residents in jeopardy of potentially being exposed to harmful toxins and eroded confidence in the hospital's leadership in the days following the derailment. The confusion over the delays in communication contributed to diminished situational awareness and unnecessary delays in their protective response. A protocol for crisis communications should be set in a formal policy, and ideally be backed up by a trained media relations specialist and pre-approved messages for any given scenarios. It would also be wise for the hospital to develop a Joint Information Centre (JIC) with neighboring agencies to communicate key messages to the community that are consistent and verifiable in a time of overall confusion in an emergency. Equipment Oversight Another significant issue was the issue of hazmat suits for the medical responders. An internal audit would soon reveal the hospital's shortage of protective equipment. Instead, medical staff would have to come up with a solution using whatever protective equipment they stumbled upon. This had implications for healthcare workers' health and safety, and it could risk the health of patients undergoing decontamination. This contamination event has various consequences - from the increased potential of staff illness resulting in a lack of staff, to the medical facility, potential liability through unsafe working conditions. To address this, it is recommended that Western View Hospital develop a robust inventory management approach that must include a minimum standard of emergency equipment, flavors, notifications for when stock is going to be replaced, etc. Departments where there is the risk of significant exposure and other points in the spoken version will have to be conducted any three months and apply extensive fumigation at least once a year. Ethical Dilemmas in TriageD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 14 Decision-making in ethical dilemmas was also tested during the derailment event, particularly in regard to patient triage. In too many instances, the lack of a defined triage protocol led to medical teams exhibiting moral uncertainty in understanding which patients needed urgent care versus those who could receive delayed treatment. This created varying gaps in care delivery due to when and in what manner treatments were chosen and initiated, and it unintentionally benefited the care of some patients by providing treatment before others due to familiarity or their social capital. Then these inconsistencies pose ethical dilemmas in relation to fairness, transparency, and accountability in the emergency context. One means to improve ethical response capacity is to adopt a standardized triage system such as START (Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment) with annual ethics training for all clinical staff at the Western View. Also, the capacity to add an Ethics Committee representative to the Incident Command System (ICS) in high-impact events can support principled and equitable decision-making in complex situations. Delayed Evacuation of Noncritical Patients As a final point, the delayed evacuation of patients that were not critically ill, from the areas which were affected by the toxic fumes further exemplifies the lack of preparedness. Understandably, hospital leaders were hesitant to move patients early on, which created a higher chance of exposure, and increased complication of internal hospital operations. The staff can only act based on environmental conditions when they are not bound by predetermined evacuation limits / thresholds, or triggers based on known information. With decision makers not having the facts and actionable information given, they are lost for a quick response. Therefore, not only did this prolong the evacuation process and put patients and staff in dangerD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 15 unnecessarily, it may have caused further, avoidable health problems. Western View needs to create thoughtful, unit-based evacuation plans with real-time live monitoring of any incident to have clear identifiable criteria, for evacuation to occur. Regular drills that include partial evacuations will further allow staff to practice these tasks with confidence and uniformity, when time might not allow for indecision. Emergency Response Plan Blueprint for Western View Hospital 1. In order to ensure that Western View Hospital is ready for future emergencies there is a comprehensive emergency response plan that needs to be developed using the five basic phases of emergency management (prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery). The following plan includes lessons learned from the train derailment and highlights specific, tangible strategies for enhancing the hospital's readiness and resilience. a. Prevention Phase: Prevention is about being aware of vulnerabilities and being proactive to fix vulnerabilities within a hospital system. Prevention for Western View Hospital includes conducting a standard Hazard Vulnerability Analysis (HVA) every year and after major events. The HVA needs to account for hazards such as transportation spills of hazardous materials, engulfed urban infrastructure, and breakdowns of communication systems. Specifically, the problem in communication during the announcements of the chemical spill later highlighted the need of the Western View Hospital staff to have a developed and clear, centralized communication plan as part of the risk assessment process. In terms of prevention, the hospital should strategize to build a communication system thatD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 16 has pre-identified and pre-approved emergency message options and outreach in multiple languages for our diverse patient population. Prevention also includes employee training and familiarity with staff roles. The gaps in training that arose during the derailment due to the inexperienced staff being confused, expose weaknesses with onboarding and professional development training. Western View Hospital should cultivate standardized emergency preparedness training across the hospital for all staff, including quarterly tabletop exercises and yearly full-scale emergency exercises as examples dealing with hazardous chemical spills and evacuations. New employees should be trained on the ICS structure, departmental procedures, and ethical deliberations in relation to equitable triage practices to prevent inconsistency such as not being able to decide which patient requires immediate assistance. b. Protection Phase: The protection phase emphasizes on the safety of people, physical infrastructure, and all essential operations prior to and during any emergency. For Western View, this begins with the physical readiness of the facility for chemical exposure circumstances to protect people and minimize exposure potential. The lack of hazmat suits causing staff to have to improvise and risk themselves, illustrates a major equipment weakness. To fix this, the organization must maintain an emergency stockpile of PPE and hazmat suit, which a digital inventory management system monitors, with minimum levels and auto-reorder. The departments that operate with higher risks of exposure, forD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 17 instance, the emergency department and transport teams, need to have priority distribution of the resources and training. In addition to equipment, protecting our patients and staff also involves controlling access, movement, and communications inside the facility. During the derailment, the hospital faced internal with frustrated patients resulting in property damage due to stretched security resources. Western View Hospital can improve their protection by employing a security model would utilize on-call or contracting personnel to come in expeditiously during emergencies. Lockdown procedures and shelter-in-place procedures need to be established for critically essential departments such as pediatrics and oncology. Protocols for family communication for designated zones and messaging will also need to be activated. Additionally, also including mechanisms for cross ventilation or emergency shutoff associated with the HVAC system. c. Mitigation Phase – Mitigation encompasses efforts to lessen the severity and impacts of emergency events. One significant precedence of mitigation for Western View is increasing decontamination capacity, for example the limited tents that overfilled very quickly during the derailment. As such, the hospital should deploy and capitalize on modular decontamination tents in designated parking lot locations, maintained by cross-functional trained staff. Emergency department staff and the security will be trained yearly in setting up and effectively handling the decontamination zones, with the support of clear patient journey protocols and environmental controls.D548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 18 Mitigation further includes a systemic insight into weaknesses, like the fragility of the supply chain. The hospital faced prolonged delays to access medications and life-safety supplies because of the transportation resulting in an inadequate number of medications during the catastrophe. One way to mitigate against this is to create regional mutual aid agreements with hospitals and vendors adjacent to the Western View vicinity for swap and sharing of emergency resources. The emergency operations center shall have a designated logistics coordinator who is responsible for supply chain continuity and emergency supply ordering processes. Moreover, during planning cycles, historical data from previous events should be studied to subsequently establish trends and improve response ability. All these steps will limit the immediate severity of impacts and contribute to a sustainable operational resilience over time. d. Response Phase – This phase zeroes in on what actions should be done immediately when an emergency occurs. Western View, during the derailment, was able to efficaciously invoke its emergency response plan to prepare all the departments, which is a good foundation to start at. The hospital should continue to develop its Incident Command System (ICS) to make sure that all department heads and key people know what their role is. The communication failures during the event by underestimating the chemical spill can be improved on by assigning a trained Public Information Officer (PIO) and using a Joint Information Center (JIC), to deliver messages across both internal departments and external agencies. Response also includes patient movement and triaging successfully. The delays in the movement of noncritical patients during the derailmentD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 19 compromising patient safety, highlighted the need for predetermined evacuation criteria. Western View should develop and regularly drill a tiered evacuation plan where real time air quality monitoring and criteria that would require the movement of vulnerable populations all be included. Ethical dilemmas that challenge clinical staff during triaging need to be addressed by ensuring that triaging protocols, for example START, are implemented and, just as importantly, are practiced. Families that are stressed and frightened need to be together before and after the event. Mobile counseling teams and areas designated for family reunification need to be established to minimize additional commotion during an already stressful and terrifying events. e. Recovery Phase – The recovery phase is vital for the hospital to restore its normal function and deal with the physical and emotional repercussions of the crisis. Following the derailment, Western View held a comprehensive post-incident review with stakeholders for a holistic analysis. In light of this incident, this should become a routine protocol for all major emergencies. The reviews should be multidisciplinary, and consist of emergency management, clinical care, logistics, IT, and communications representatives. The resulting learned lessons should be incorporated by amended emergency plans and sharing the information in staff meetings. Recovery also includes stabilizing infrastructure, replenishing supplies, and restoring services, with a huge emphasis on IT for the re-activation of digital health records and communication systems. Lastly, psychological recovery is just as important. During the derailment event, the hospital provided limited counselling booths with long wait times whileD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 20 the demand far exceeded what they could accommodate. As part of future recovery, psychological framework needs to include expanded services for behavioral health for both patient and staff care, possibly through an affiliation with local mental health organizations. Having a devoted staff resilience program is also important to offer counseling, peer support, and stress debriefings. Additionally, Western View needs to engage the community through town halls, surveys, and public reporting to show documented progress and restoring trust. Recovery is not just about restoring function—it's about healing the human toll and building long-term resilience. 1.1. Continual Improvement Measures for the Emergency Response Plan The first continual improvement action, aimed at ensuring that Western View Hospital's emergency response plan remains relevant and responsive to newly emerging risks, is the implementation of a structured After-Action Review (AAR) and feedback loop after every emergency or large-scale drill. In using the hospital's own lessons learned during the post-review of the train derailment in the holistic analysis, AAR evaluations should include frontline staff, department managers, emergency management subject matter experts, and logistics personnel. The assessments should be examining what worked, identifying and understanding opportunities for improvement, and determining who will be accountable to ensure changes are implemented. The feedback will be retained and utilized to update and clarify procedures, revise training, and tweak responses checklist items, thus generating an epic plan which changes as a result of practical real-life experience.D548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 21 The second improvement measure is to integrate regular scenario-based simulation exercises into the hospital's emergency preparedness program. The scenarios should reflect current vulnerabilities particular to Western View, such as chemical spills or transport access problems, and include different seasons and times of the day. Scenarios should include clinical and administrative problems, such as ethical issues related to triage, coordination with external agencies, and subject shortages for example PPE gear or medications. Involving all departments and rotating leadership roles during such exercises may reveal other unconsidered gaps and ensure organizational readiness throughout. 1.2. Strategies to Instill Resilience Among Patients, Staff, and the Community To foster long-term psychological resiliency of patients and their families following a traumatic experience, Western View Hospital could implement a Trauma Resilience and Recovery Program (TRRP), similar to the established system at the Medical University of South Carolina. TRRP provides early mental health interventions that start during the hospital stay and continue at discharge, followed by daily text message checking ins, assessments for recovery, and mental health referrals. This early and sustained approach has implications for trauma patients who may be at risk for developing PTSD, depression or anxiety following large-scale events. Emotional recovery for trauma patients should begin with hospital discharge and a recovery plan that continues into the community as part of an integrated clinical mental health support continuum. For hospitals, structured staff debriefing sessions, access to peer support networks, and training in stress management will help mitigate burnout and will support ongoing and future mental health of staff. By Western View hospital taking a similarD548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 22 approach, it would benefit patient recovery outcomes as well additionally have greater potential for trauma-informed care. This will create the potential to continue to reduce the longer-term mental health impact of trauma for individuals involved with large-scale events like chemical exposure or locational evacuations. A second key strategy for resilience is to enhance engagement with the community around emergency preparedness. Building from its previous use of a community-wide hotline, Western View can better connect with the public through neighborhood emergency preparedness educational sessions, distribution of multilingual preparedness guides, and town hall meetings that elevate historically marginalized voices. Research has consistently shown that genuine engagement and sustained collaboration with institutions and communities, predominantly by co-lead planning, culturally competent outreach, shared mapping of resources, produces a greater capacity and strengthened and faster recovery (Ramsbottom et al. 414–417). Creating a community advisory board with civic leaders, religious leaders, local nonprofit organization representatives and bilingual residents, will also help contextualize emergency messaging to better reflect community needs and enhance a more inclusive approach to planning. Using the public not just as the audience for information, but as engaged partners in resilience planning, promotes the sense of ownership and responsibility necessary to advance preparedness, promote more equitable approaches to responding, and hopefully produce trust in the leadership at the hospital.D548 Task 1 – Comprehensive Emergency Response 23 Work Cited 1. Ramsbottom, Anna, et al. “Enablers and Barriers to Community Engagement in Public Health Emergency Preparedness: A Literature Review.” Journal of Community Health, vol. 43, no. 2, 2018, pp. 412–420. Springer, Accessed 10 June 2025. 2. Trauma Resilience and Recovery Program. TRRP Health, Medical University of South Carolina,