Crisis Communication Plan
A well-executed communication plan should help reduce unnecessary distress to the general public, creating public reassurance, care precaution provision, and limiting inappropriate demands on the health care system. There exist diverse opinions on how to disclose to the public the formulated preparedness plans for innumerable situations of a bioterrorism attack and the extent to which public involvement will be needed (Ozanne et al., 2020). To have effective communication on the anticipated problems and to act effectively, it is important to have a good understanding of the crisis. The phases of crisis are pre-crisis, initial, maintenance, resolution, and evaluation (Haupt and Azevedo, 2021). Get in touch with us at eminencepapers.com. We offer assignment help with high professionalism.
Communication objectives during the pre-crisis phase are preparedness, fostering alliances, developing a consensus recommendation, and test messaging. During this phase, draft an initial communication plan with blanks to be filled later, identify spokesperson, resources, and resource mechanisms, provide training and refinement of the project and messages, foster the alliances to ensure that the experts only speak in one voice, and conduct a communication needs assessment.
The initial crisis phase is usually characterized by immense confusion and increased interest in media use. The objectives of this phase are acknowledging the event with empathy, explaining to the public the crisis and its impacts, providing an emergency course of action, and committing to continue communicating with the people and the stakeholders. Before releasing any information to the media, do a proofread and then approve. Always prepare the communicators to respond to the questions quickly (David and Carignan, 2017).
The objectives of communication in the crisis maintenance phase are helping the public to understand the risks accurately and providing background information to those in need. Do a frequent reality check to ascertain if the communicators are effectively doing their job and engage leadership with straightforward crisis communication objectives.
Crisis communication team
The key crisis responders are public information officers whose duty is to activate the communication plan under local health officer leadership and provide updates to the health officer. The content coordinator establishes and develops mechanisms for replying to the received information. The media coordinator assesses the media and organizes means for meeting the identified needs. Other members include the direct public outreach coordinator, partner coordinator, and rumor control coordinator (Malecki et al., 2021).
Recourses
Effective management of crisis requires enough acquisition of people, space, and equipment; however, the majority of public information officers always tend to use minimal or no budget at all. The identified needs should guide the procurement of the resources. Acquire enough space, i.e., combine the first three rooms; this space should allow for quiet meetings and training, enough to bring the media on-site and allow for effective communication with the team and effective use of equipment. People (identify and qualify data entry clerks to take phone inquiries, allocate and train people to either operate a 24/7 public and media information center, consider staff from throughout the health department, recruit medical community volunteers to help with phones, and do not recruit more than needed staff)
You will need the following equipment: telephone system, computer, translation services, portable copier, television, reference material tables and chairs, calendars, easels, flow charts, bulletin board, copy paper, pens, pencils, notebooks, organizers, staplers, folders, etc.
Joint Information Centre
Temporally establish a joint organization to oversee the crisis communication among the resonance team. This collaborative team will be the source of information during the emergency. The leadership of this organization will include government agencies, law enforcement, emergency response communities, and the military. The Joint Information Centre may partner with the American Red Cross, the California Department of Public Health, the National Guard, the Fire Department, the county administration, etc.
Crisis communication protocol
Know precisely when and what to communicate to the general public. This protocol outlines what, when, and who to speak to during a crisis, and it also gives the timeline for implementation of the communication plan. Always match the task to a particular member of the respondent team, i.e., activation of the crisis website. Consider approval from the organization before implementing the communication plan. Finally, always keep the communication plan protocol and the emergency risk communication plan together (Veil et al., 2020).
References
David, M. D., & Carignan, M. E. (2017). Crisis adaptation strategies in the MM&A train explosion in Lac-Mégantic downtown: going back to field communication. Corporate Communications: An International Journal. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/CCIJ-02-2016-0022/full/html
Haupt, B., & Azevedo, L. (2021). Crisis communication planning and nonprofit organizations. Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/DPM-06-2020-0197/full/html
Malecki, K. M., Keating, J. A., & Safdar, N. (2021). Crisis communication and public perception of COVID-19 risk in the era of social media. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 72(4), 697-702. https://academic.oup.com/cid/article-abstract/72/4/697/5858208
Ozanne, L. K., Ballantine, P. W., & Mitchell, T. (2020). Investigating the methods and effectiveness of crisis communication. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 32(4), 379-405. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10495142.2020.1798856
Veil, S. R., Anthony, K. E., Sellnow, T. L., Staricek, N., Young, L. E., & Cupp, P. (2020). Revisiting the best practices in risk and crisis communication: A multi‐case analysis. The handbook of applied communication research, 377-396. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781119399926.ch23
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Question
Continue to develop a plan of action in the event of an outbreak or emergency (natural, bioterrorism, chemicals, radiation, etc) either from within the country or from a global source. Develop a communication plan for the community. What resources will you use? Consider possible resources such as social media, word of mouth, and public service announcements. You will also need to address information to specific populations, either vulnerable people or those most at risk for the type of emergency or outbreak. For example, in the Ebola outbreak, healthcare workers who were caring for exposed patients in the hospital were most at risk.