Public health emergencies like the H1N1 flu raises global concern because of its harmful effect to the human population, causing sickness, incapacitation and even death. Unlike natural calamities that strike for a limited period of time and in limited locations, the pandemic flu can last longer as it spreads all around the world, and primarily hits the human population.
Because of the devastating effect of the pandemic flu, it is also a concern of the facility manager tasked to protect the safety of residential, commercial or industrial tenants. The facility manager must be a catalyst to organize the proper responses of all concerned stakeholders in the event of a public health emergency.
It falls on the facility manager to coordinate the creation and implementation of an emergency preparedness plan for the facility, involving building tenants, facility employees, third-party service vendors or suppliers, and external stakeholders such as the local government and public safety organizations.
The facility manager must enable the quickest and most effective response to any emergency. Stakeholder involvement in emergency preparedness planning ensures that the safety plan encompasses not only the most comprehensive emergency response procedures, but also stakeholders’ inputs. A deep level of stakeholder involvement results to early prevention and threat detection, effective communication, control, mitigation, evacuation and recovery actions.
