The Yale New Haven Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response (YNH-CEPDR) has worked in the United States with state and local health and medical organizations to evaluate critical decision making activities and to develop decision making tools and protocols to enhance decision making in a time sensitive environment. YNH-CEPDR has also worked with international organizations and US federal agencies to support situational awareness activities in simulated and real world events.

During this session YNH-CEPDR will share the best practices from recent events such as the H1N1 response and the Haiti Earthquake. Participants will be engaged in discussions regarding overall framework for successful information collection, analysis and dissemination to support decision making based on these experiences. This session will also incorporate concepts provided by the US National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the Incident Command System (ICS), specifically through the development of Situational Reports (SitReps), Incident Action Plans (IAP) and Job Action Sheets as methods to implement the framework and concepts discussed. Participants will be led through a series of scenario-based discussions to allow application of critical decision making factors to their organization. At the conclusion of the session, participants will be able to identify next steps for enhancing the synchronization of critical decision making and information analysis within their organizations.