Intelligence & Planning

Intelligence and planning functions are critical for the effective management of public health incidents. Staff supporting these functions will need skill-sets in epidemiology, surveillance, policy analysis and development. Key capabilities for an intelligence and planning function include:

Preparedness

Development of policies, protocols and procedures to support an evidence-based and consistent response.
Training and development of staff in public health responses.
Scenario development and testing to trial response approach.

Horizon scanning

Using existing surveillance systems or early warning systems to monitor risk. Depending on the threat this could include:

Communicable disease epidemiology and surveillance
Thunderstorm asthma forecasts
Heatwave warnings
Other incidents and warnings as published through Vic Emergency
Organisations may also develop their own bespoke surveillance systems to monitor specific risks in certain geographic locations or among particular population groups.
Regular monitoring of international news, literature and other developments.

Incident response

During an incident response there is frequently a high burden of meetings (with internal and external stakeholders), briefings, and changes in policy settings. Incident response governance should include articulating file management conventions.
Templates should be developed and stored for meetings, situation reports, incident action plans / control strategies, and briefing documents.
A clear tempo should be defined for reporting of up-to-date quantitative and qualitative intelligence in situation reports.

After-action review

Where possible, after-action reviews or other evaluation activities should be undertaken to review incident response and consider recommendations for future responses.