PUBLIC HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS
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Public Health Organizations
Introduction
Health services administration and disaster management are sectors that are crucial to any society’s progress and welfare. Both sectors relate to the issue of public health and if neglected they are likely to result in serious concerns that could cripple a nation. Health services administration concerns a range of issues that emerge within a society regarding the welfare of the populace. Sometimes the concerns are capable of affecting an entire society, while in other cases they only cause harm to a small section of the populace. Normally, officials are supposed to handle such threats to public health with concern, irrespective of how large or small the situation appears to be. The reason for this is that there is a direct correlation between a society’s health and its prosperity. Disaster management is also an important concern for every community because of the danger that crises and calamities pose. Communities often find themselves with different crises at one time or another and if the disasters are not dealt with then they could cause a substantial amount of damage. For this reason, government officials should consider health services administration and disaster management to be important areas of governance for the sake of their people’s prosperity.
Discussion
According to Kapucu and Ozerdem (2013, 12), disasters are incidences or events that cause a lot of destruction for a society, often leading to death, disruption and infrastructural damage. In most cases, a hazard develops within a community but then aggravates into a disaster because of various issues such as mismanagement, lack of preparation or poor decision making. The way that a society handles the different hazards it faces are a key determinant of whether they will turn into crises and how serious they will become. Disaster management and health services administration share a strong connection because calamities and crises are capable of affecting public welfare as a whole (Kapucu and Ozerdem 2013, 12).
Health services administration refers to several concerns that are essential to the welfare of a community. Scholars claim that managing the sector entails the control and monitoring of issues such as infectious diseases, environmental hazards and pandemics (Burke and Friedman 2011, 2). With the sector involving a very large number of concerns, the bigger issue within health services administration is how the people involved in the sector deal with the different situations that come up. This means that management is a central issue in the sector. Burke and Friedman (2011, 2) argue that management is a critical aspect of health services administration with proper supervision being one of the best ways of ensuring welfare for a society.
Health services administration and disaster management share a close connection because they both affect public wellbeing. Mismanagement in either department or sector could cause a society a lot of harm and destruction. Clements (2009, 2) argues that crises involving public health are usually quite serious with the potential of causing a lot of harm. This is especially the case when the people in leadership positions fail to deal with a situation effectively, or are caught off guard by a calamity. Due to the critical nature of threats to public welfare, it is imperative for the disaster management and health services departments to have comprehensive procedures that are capable of dealing with any kind of crisis that arises (Clements 2009, 2). .
The events surrounding Hurricane Katrina are an excellent example of how inadequate procedures can help aggravate a hazard into a crisis affecting public health (Schneider 2011, 6). During the crisis, the state and federal authorities failed in a number of areas such as communication and preparation. For the case of New Orleans, preparation was a key factor in disaster management in light of the fact that the city has been facing periodic crises that go as far back as the early twentieth century (Fink 2013, 22). However, after the crisis of Hurricane Katrina played out as it did, it became obvious that the disaster management and health services administration systems were in need of an overhaul (Schneider 2011, 8).
Conclusion
Many
scholars have looked into the issues of disaster management and health services
administration and the key consensus seems to be that the two are connected
because of their impact on public welfare. This connection happens to make the
two sectors very important, because the prosperity and stability of any society
is heavily reliant on its wellbeing. The key issue within both sectors is
management and how a government or organization responds to the crisis it is
facing. With proper supervision, few hazards are capable of growing into
calamities and disasters that cause a lot of damage. However, the alternative
is also possible, with poor management making hazards become the kinds of
crises that could bring down a community.
References
Burke, Robert, and Leonard H. Friedman. 2011. Essentials of Management and Leadership in Public Health. Sadbury: Jones and Barlett Learning.
Clements, Bruce. 2009. Disasters and Public Health: Planning and Response. Burlington: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Fink, Sheri. 2013. Five Days Memorial at New York. New York: Crown Publishers.
Kapucu, Naim, and Alpasian Ozerdem. 2013. Managing Emergencies and Crises. Burlington: Jones & Barlett Learning.
Schneider, Saundra K. 2011. Dealing with Disaster: Public Management in Crisis Situations. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe.