by Matthew Mahar, Cumberland County EMA
To support emergency managers at a variety of different levels, FEMA and other entities created constructs – programs, grants, assessments, doctrines, and coordination bodies – based upon different times and needs. The overall number of constructs has grown over the years, and poor integration of them has opened the opportunity for decreasing emergency management services and disaster outcomes.
This article details the review researchers did on over 30 FEMA constructs, with a goal of looking for opportunities to streamline, simplify, and strengthen the overall Emergency Management system. They looked at how these constructs overlapped, were duplicative, and often fragmented, which affected their overall implementation and the subsequent outcomes. The researchers acknowledge the difficulties in truly transformative changes, due to the need for broad consensus across a spectrum of different levels of EM.
If you are interested in learning more – Link to the Document
