Hospital Evacuation and Shelter-in-Place: Who Is Responsible for Decision-Making?

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 320-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan D. McGinty ◽  
Thomas A. Burke ◽  
Daniel J. Barnett ◽  
Katherine C. Smith ◽  
Beth Resnick ◽  
...  

AbstractObjectiveDuring natural disasters, hospital evacuation may be necessary to ensure patient safety and care. We aimed to examine perceptions of stakeholders involved in these decisions throughout the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012.MethodsSemistructured interviews were conducted from March 2014 to February 2015 to characterize stakeholders’ perceptions about authority and responsibility for acute care hospital evacuation/shelter-in-place decision-making in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York during Hurricane Sandy. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed using a framework approach.ResultsWe interviewed 42 individuals from 32 organizations. Hospital executives from all states reported having authority and responsibility for evacuation/shelter-in-place decision-making. In New York and Maryland, government officials stated that they could order hospital evacuation, whereas officials in Delaware and New Jersey said the government lacked enforcement capacity and therefore could not mandate evacuation.ConclusionsAmong government officials, perceived authority for hospital evacuation/shelter-in-place decision-making was viewed as a prerequisite to ordering evacuation. When both hospital executives and government officials perceive themselves to possess decision-making authority, there is the potential for inaction. Future work should examine whether a single entity bearing ultimate responsibility or regional emergency response coalitions would improve decision-making. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2016;10:320–324)

Prospects ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 181-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard P. Segal

“Technology Spurs Decentralization Across the Country.” So reads a 1984 New York Times article on real-estate trends in the United States. The contemporary revolution in information processing and transmittal now allows large businesses and other institutions to disperse their offices and other facilities across the country, even across the world, without loss of the policy- and decision-making abilities formerly requiring regular physical proximity. Thanks to computers, word processors, and the like, decentralization has become a fact of life in America and other highly technological societies.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-156
Author(s):  
PAUL S. REICHLER

AbstractThe Nicaragua case demonstrates the Court's competence in receiving and interpreting evidence, and in making reasoned findings of fact, even in the most complicated evidentiary context, as is often presented in cases involving use of force and armed conflict. The Court applied well-established standards for evaluating the conflicting evidence presented to it. In particular, the Court determined that greater weight should be given to statements against interest made by high-level government officials than to a state's self-serving declarations. The Court also determined that statements by disinterested witnesses with first-hand knowledge should receive greater weight than mere statements of opinion or press reports. In applying these guidelines, the Court found, correctly, that (i) the United States had used military and paramilitary force against Nicaragua both directly and indirectly, by organizing, financing, arming, and training the Contra guerrillas to attack Nicaragua; (ii) the evidence did not support a finding that the United States exercised direct control over the Contras’ day-to-day operations; and (iii) there was no evidence that Nicaragua supplied arms to guerrillas fighting against the government of El Salvador during the relevant period, or carried out an armed attack against that state. While Judge Schwebel's dissent criticized the last of these findings, in fact, the evidence fully supported the Court's conclusion. In subsequent decisions during the past 25 years, the Court has continued to rely on the approach to evidence first elaborated in the Nicaragua case and has continued to demonstrate its competence as a finder of fact, including in cases involving armed conflict (Bosnia Genocide) and complex scientific and technical issues (Pulp Mills).


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 853-855
Author(s):  
Richard E. Kravath

A 5-month-old boy died of asphyxia from airway obstruction caused by his pacifier. It had been imported from Spain by La Cibeles Inc. of Union City, New Jersey, and had been marketed in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Florida, and Puerto Rico under the brand names Fauna, Flower, Navy, and Texas. It sold for about 50 cents. It is attractive in design, but has characteristics that make it dangerous. Following our report to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission,* the pacifier was recalled. We have been able to find only one similar case in the literature.1 The unnecessary tragedy was due to a preventable hazard and both individual and governmental action should avoid its recurrence.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Kibblewhite ◽  
Peter Boshier

Concern exists that New Zealand hasn’t struck the right balance between two potentially competing principles of good government: officials should provide free and frank advice to ministers, and the public should have opportunities to participate in decision making and hold the government to account. Steps we have taken to address this include: strengthening constitutional underpinnings for free and frank advice (Cabinet Manual changes and issuing expectations for officials); a work programme to improve government agency practice in relation to the Official Information Act; and the Office of the Ombudsman reducing uncertainty about when advice can be withheld by issuing new principles-based guidance and providing more advisory services.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 395-404
Author(s):  
Maurice S. Nyarangaa ◽  
Chen Hao ◽  
Duncan O. Hongo

Public participation aimed at improving the effectiveness of governance by involving citizens in governance policy formulation and decision-making processes. It was designed to promote transparency, accountability and effectiveness of any modern government. Although Kenya has legally adopted public participation in day-to-day government activities, challenges still cripple its effectiveness as documented by several scholars. Instead of reducing conflicts between the government and the public, it has heightened witnessing so many petitions of government missing on priorities in terms of development and government policies. Results show that participation weakly relates with governance hence frictions sustainable development. Theoretically, public participation influences governance efficiency and development, directly and indirectly, thus sustainable development policy and implementation depends on Public participation and good governance. However, an effective public participation in governance is has been fractioned by the government. Instead of being a promoter/sponsor of public participation, the government of Kenya has failed to put structures that would spur participation of citizens in policy making and other days to activities. This has brought about wrong priority setting and misappropriation of public resources; The government officials and political class interference ultimately limit public opinion and input effects on decision-making and policy formulation, which might be an inner factor determining the failure of public participation in Kenya. The study suggests the need for strengthening public participation by establishing an independent institution to preside over public participation processes.


Data Series ◽  
10.3133/ds905 ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey M. Fischer ◽  
Patrick J. Phillips ◽  
Timothy J. Reilly ◽  
Michael J. Focazio ◽  
Keith A. Loftin ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-192
Author(s):  
Cheryl L. Pollak

On the evening of October 29, 2012, “Hurricane” Sandy made land- fall on the New York coastline, battering the land with strong winds, torrential rain, and record-breaking storm surges. Homes and commercial structures were destroyed; roads and tunnels were flooded; and more than 23,000 people sought refuge in temporary shelters, with many others facing weeks without power and electricity. At the time, Sandy was heralded as one of the costliest hurricanes in the his- tory of the United States; the second costliest hurricane only to Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005. Unfortunately, recent experience with Hurricanes Florence, Maria, Harvey, and Irma suggest that this pattern of devastating superstorms may become the new norm as climate change produces more extreme and unpredictable weather events. In Sandy’s aftermath, as individuals returned to their homes, or what remained of them, and communities began to rebuild, the true cost of the storm became apparent. A year after the storm, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) estimated that over $1.4 billion in assistance was provided to 182,000 survivors of the dis- aster; another $3.2 billion was provided to state and local governments for debris removal, infrastructure repair, and emergency protective measures. More than $2.4 billion was provided to individuals and businesses in the form of low-interest loans through the Small Business Administration (“SBA”), and millions more were spent on grants de- signed to implement mitigation measures in the future and to provide unemployment assistance to survivors. Before the storm, homeowners paid premiums for flood insurance provided through the National Flood Insurance Program (“NFIP”), and for homeowner’s insurance provided by dozens of private insurers. In the months following the storm, they began to file claims for assistance in rebuilding their homes. While many such claims were re- solved successfully, many homeowners were unhappy with the settlement amounts offered by their insurance carriers and felt compelled to file lawsuits in the surrounding state and federal courts. Many of those lawsuits were filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (“EDNY”). This case study describes the EDNY’s specifically crafted, unique approach to handling the mass litigation that ensued from Sandy’s devastation, documents some of the problems that the Court faced during that mass litigation, and describes some of the lessons learned from the Court’s experience.


1931 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 238-251
Author(s):  
Blewett Lee

On September 15, 1930, the State Board of Commerce and Navigation of New Jersey made a ruling that aircraft would not be permitted to land on any New Jersey waters above tidewater within the jurisdiction of the state. The application had been made for permission to operate a five passenger flying boat between Nolan's Point, Lake Hopatcong, a vacation resort, and New York City, and to set off a portion of the lake to make a landing place for the hydroairplane. It was stated that other inland waters in New Jersey were being used for a similar purpose, and the ground of the refusal was that aircraft flying from water constituted a menace to surface navigation. This ruling created considerable newspaper comment and aroused vigorous protest from persons interested in aviation, and by order of October 20, 1930, the ruling was limited to Lake Hopatcong.


Author(s):  
M. Ernita Joaquin ◽  
Thomas J. Greitens

This chapter provides a basic template that governments can use when integrating budgetary information into any type of e-government website. Building on previous scholarship on citizen participation, budgeting, and budgetary transparency in e-government, the template divides budgetary information into two broad categories: process-based information that gives citizens a better understanding of budget decision-making and their avenues of participation, and outcome-based information that shows citizens the types of revenue collected by the government and how those revenues are used. We examine these two categories of budgetary information on state governmental websites in the United States and find that as governments increase the technological presentation of budgetary outcomes on their websites, a decline in the presentation of some types of budgetary process information occurs. We suggest that regardless of the sophistication of the e-government website, governments must present information on both the budgetary process and outcomes for true budgetary transparency via e-government to occur.


1911 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 355-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Nys

During the fourteen years that he occupied the chair of history and political economy at Columbia College, in the city of New York, Francis Lieber displayed praiseworthy activity. This period of his life covered some restless years; the theatre of operations was of a size whose equal can be shown by few historical dramas. Terrorstricken, the civilized world witnessed a tremendous struggle, whence, fortunately, the cause of civilization was to issue triumphant. The learned professor did not content himself with zealously performing his university obligations; neither was he satisfied with fulfilling his civic duties; he threw himself resolutely into the conflict; he fought with his tongue and his pen; he made himself the organizer and representative of a ceaseless propaganda for the Union cause against the secessionists; by his advice and by his legal works he gave the Federal Government the most valuable assistance. For a long time he had been occupied with public law; he now enlarged the field of his researches and his studies, and he studied ardently the laws of war and important problems of international law. The serious events taking place before his eyes led him, too, to write his opinions and to draft The instructions for the government of armies of the United States in the field, which will ever be an honor to him.


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