Aim To explore nursing management issues within COVID-19 narratives of Italian front-line nurses. Background The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically affected health systems and professionals worldwide. Italian nurses have key messages for nursing leaders following their acute experiences in the pandemic. Method A descriptive qualitative study with thematic analysis. Results Twenty-three testimonies from clinical nurses were analysed. Six macrothemes were identified as follows: organisational and logistic change; leadership models adopted to manage the emergency; changes in nursing approaches; personal protective equipment issues; physical and psychological impact on nurses; and team value/spirit. Conclusions Our testimonies highlighted the huge impact of COVID-19 on the Italian nursing workforce, especially in terms of the high risks associated with caring for COVID-19 patients, exacerbated by the shortage of appropriate personal protective equipment. Nurses had to care for their colleagues and live separately from their families to avoid infecting them, revealing nurses' resilience and the important role of effective and sensitive management. Implications for nursing management Nurse managers must be prepared for the impact of pandemics on staff and need to ensure availability and replacement of quality personal protective equipment, rehearse strategies for communicating with patients while wearing personal protective equipment and establish protocols for communicating with relatives.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jonm.13194

Lessons from Italian front-line nurses' experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative descriptive study.

An increasing number of international emergency medical teams are deployed to assist disaster-affected populations worldwide Since Haiti earthquake those teams have been criticised for ill adapted care, lack of preparedness in addition to not coordinating with the affected country healthcare system The Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs) initiative, as part of the Word Health Organization's Global Health Emergency Workforce program, aims to address these shortcomings by improved EMT coordination, and mechanisms to ensure quality and accountability of national and international EMTs An essential component to reach this goal is appropriate education and training Multiple disaster education and training programs are available However, most are centred on individuals' professional development rather than on the EMTs operational performance Moreover, no common overarching or standardised training frameworks exist In this report, an expert panel review and discuss the current approaches to disaster education and training and propose a three-step operational learning framework that could be used for EMTs globally The proposed framework includes the following steps: 1) ensure professional competence and license to practice, 2) support adaptation of technical and non-technical professional capacities into the low-resource and emergency context and 3) prepare for an effective team performance in the field A combination of training methodologies is also recommended, including individual theory based education, immersive simulations and team training Agreed curriculum and open access training materials for EMTs need to be further developed, ideally through collaborative efforts between WHO, operational EMT organizations, universities, professional bodies and training agencies  Keywords: disasters; education; emergencies; global health; learning

Education and Training of Emergency Medical Teams: Recommendations for a Global Operational Learning Framework.

OBJECTIVE: Although there is a significant willingness to respond to disasters, a review of post-event reports following incidents shows troubling repeated patterns with poorly integrated response activities and response managers inadequately trained for the requirements of disasters. This calls for a new overall approach in disaster management. METHODS: An in-depth review of the education and training opportunities available to responders and disaster managers has been undertaken, as well as an extensive review of the educational competencies and their parent domains identified by subject matter experts as necessary for competent performance. RESULTS: Seven domains of competency and competencies that should be mastered by disaster mangers were identified. This set of domains and individual competencies was utilized to define a new and evolving curriculum. In order to evaluate and assess the mastery of each competency, objectives were more widely defined as activities under specific topics, as the measurable elements of the curriculum, for each managerial level. CONCLUSIONS: This program enables interagency cooperation and collaboration and could be used to increase and improve decision-makers' understanding of disaster managers' capabilities; at the strategic/tactical level to promote the knowledge and capability of the disaster managers themselves; and as continuing education or further career development for disaster managers at the operational level. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2016;page 1 of 20). Language: en

Education in disaster management: what do we offer and what do we need? Proposing a new global program

Objective A disaster is a consequence of natural hazards and terrorist acts, which have significant potential to disrupt the entire wireless communication infrastructure. Therefore, the essential rescue squads and recovery operations during a catastrophic event will be severely debilitated. To provide efficient communication services, and to reduce casualty mortality and morbidity during the catastrophic events, we proposed the Tethered Balloon technology for disaster preparedness, detection, mitigation, and recovery assessment. Methods The proposed Tethered Balloon is applicable to any type of disaster except for storms. The Tethered Balloon is being actively researched and developed as a simple solution to improve the performance of rescues, facilities, and services of emergency medical communication in the disaster area. The most important requirement for rescue and relief teams during or after the disaster is a high quality of service of delivery communication services to save people's lives. Results Using our proposed technology, we report that the Tethered Balloon has a large disaster coverage area. Therefore, the rescue and research teams are given higher priority, and their performance significantly improved in the particular coverage area. Conclusions Tethered Balloon features made it suitable for disaster preparedness, mitigation, and recovery. The performance of rescue and relief teams was effective and efficient before and after the disaster as well as can be continued to coordinate the relief teams until disaster recovery. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:222-231).

Disaster Coverage Predication for the Emerging Tethered Balloon Technology: Capability for Preparedness, Detection, Mitigation, and Response.

Background 
Although nurses play an important role in humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HA/DR), little is known about the nursing activities that are performed in HA/DR. We aimed to clarify the nursing activities performed by Japanese nurses in HA/DR and to examine the factors associated with the frequency of nursing activities.


Methods 
A self-administered questionnaire survey was completed by 147 nurses with HA/DR experience. The survey extracted information on demographic characteristics, past experience (e.g., disaster medical training experience, HA/DR experience), circumstances surrounding their dispatched to HA/DR (e.g., team size, disaster type, post-disaster phase, mission term), and the frequency of nursing activities performed under HA/DR. The frequency of nursing activities was rated on a 5-point Likert scale. Evaluation of nursing activities was conducted based on the “nursing activity score”, which represents the frequency of each nursing activity. Factors related to the nursing activity score were evaluated by multiple logistic regression analysis.


Results 
Nurses were involved in 27 nursing activities in HA/DR, 10 of which were performed frequently. On analysis, factors significantly associated with nursing activity score were nursing license as a registered nurse (OR 7.79, 95% CI 2.95–20.57), two or more experiences with disaster medical training (OR 2.90 95%, CI 1.12–7.49) and a post-disaster phase of three weeks or longer (OR 8.77, 95% CI 2.59–29.67).


Conclusions 
These results will contribute to the design of evidence-based disaster medical training that improves the quality of nursing activities.

/pdf/factors-associated-with-nursing-activities-in-humanitarian-3wtv7xtkkh.pdf

Factors Associated with Nursing Activities in Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief.

Disaster response demands a large workforce covering diverse professional sectors. Throughout this article, we illustrate the results of a systematic review of peer-reviewed studies to identify existing competency sets for disaster management and humanitarian assistance that would serve as guidance for the development of a common disaster curriculum. A systematic review of English-language articles was performed on PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, ERIC, and Cochrane Library. Studies were included if reporting competency domains, abilities, knowledge, skills, or attitudes for professionals involved disaster relief or humanitarian assistance. Exclusion criteria included abstracts, citations, case studies, and studies not dealing with disasters or humanitarian assistance. Thirty-eight papers were analyzed. Target audience was defined in all articles. Five references (13%) reported cross-sectorial competencies. Most of the articles (81.6%) were specific to health care. Eighteen (47%) papers included competencies for at least 2 different disciplines and 18 (47%) for different professional groups. Nursing was the most widely represented cadre. Eighteen papers (47%) defined competency domains and 36 (94%) reported list of competencies. Nineteen articles (50%) adopted consensus-building to define competencies, and 12 (31%) included competencies adapted to different professional responsibility levels. This systematic review revealed that the largest number of papers were mainly focused on the health care sector and presented a lack of agreement on the terminology used for competency-based definition.

/pdf/core-competencies-in-disaster-management-and-humanitarian-1qeix40dtz.pdf

Marc Stal

Papers

Core Competencies in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance: A Systematic Review.