Twitter as a tool for the management and analysis of emergency situations: A systematic literature review

Background: Communication and leadership are two interconnected concepts that are essential to achieving successful and high-quality team interventions in emergency situations.Objective: To identify communication and leadership best practices in emergency situations.Methods: A systematic literature review with meta-synthesis was conducted using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Reviewers’ Manual (JBI, 2014). A search was conducted to identify studies published between January 2006 and July 2016 using the terms communication, leadership, and emergency. Studies in the areas of pediatrics or simulated practice environments were excluded.Results: Nineteen of the 447 studies found in the search met the inclusion criteria. During synthesis, data were divided into three dimensions: leader’s characteristics, initial and lifelong training, and leadership process. Communication and leadership training were considered essential for developing skills required in emergency situations.Conclusions: Despite the low level of evidence of the included studies, this study puts forward recommendations for communication and leadership best practices in emergency situations.

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Advancing Resilience of Critical Health Infrastructures to Cascading Impacts of Water Supply Outages—Insights from a Systematic Literature Review

Infrastructures ◽

10.3390/infrastructures6120177 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 (12) ◽

pp. 177

Author(s):

Nathalie Sänger ◽

Christine Heinzel ◽

Simone Sandholz

Keyword(s):

Literature Review ◽

Water Supply ◽

Systematic Literature Review ◽

Emergency Preparedness ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Organizational Strategies ◽

Healthcare Facilities ◽

Emergency Situations ◽

Health Infrastructure ◽

Infrastructure Resilience

The current understanding of critical health infrastructure resilience is still dominated by a technical perspective. Reality however is different, as past events including the COVID-19 pandemic have revealed: emergency situations are only rarely exclusively technical in nature. Instead they are a product of prior circumstances, often linked to natural hazards, technical mishaps, and insufficient social and organizational preparedness structures. However, experiences and lessons learned from past events are still largely overlooked and have not sufficiently found their way into conceptual understandings of critical health infrastructure resilience. This paper addresses this gap by challenging the one-sided and technically oriented understanding of resilience in the context of critical health infrastructure. Based on a systematic literature review, it assesses real-world cases of water supply failures in healthcare facilities, a serious threat largely overlooked in research and policy. The results underscore the need for targeted organizational strategies to deal with cascading impacts. The overall findings show that addressing technical aspects alone is not sufficient to increase the overall resilience of healthcare facilities. Broadening the dominant resilience understanding is hence an important foundation for healthcare infrastructures to improve risk management and emergency preparedness strategies to increase their resilience towards future disruptions.

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