Guiding improvements in disaster management

Complex communication channels similar to those of social networking shape the capacity of rescue services to respond rapidly and collaboratively and thus minimising the effects of disasters such as mass flooding, biodisasters or bushfires.

Professor Hossain, director of the university’s Project Management program, is a member of an international team researching the best methods of disaster management. The team, which was recently awarded €4.3 million by the European Union to further develop its disaster management system S-HELP,  will trial the system via three stimulated multifactorial interagency disaster scenarios. Conducted in locations within Europe, the scenarios include a chemical explosion, mass flooding and a regional biohazard.

Professor Hossain says emergency preparedness and response coordination is a multi-organisational effort, where shared goals - warning, evacuation and recovery - are heavily interdependent.

“Throughout these three scenarios we will model the situational and projected evolution of the emergencies and the ability of those involved to communicate, coordinated and collaborative in problem-solving.”

Professor Hossain, whose research interests are focused on understanding the behavioural dynamics of groups in chaos or crisis, says S-HELP will provide evidence-based solutions to improve health services performance in emergency management, similar to those experienced earlier this year in Pakistan and more recently in Dresden and Prague.

Disasters place an enormous burden on health infrastructure, with an increased demand for medical attention, displacement and major outbreaks of infectious diseases all placing additional strain on health services.

“Preparedness and response capabilities of health services will directly impact society’s ability to bounce back, to become more resilient to future disasters,” stated Professor Hossain.

He says S-HELP will significantly enhance operability by advancing the existing knowledge base required for the development of the next generation of decision support (DS) tools and a user-centred decision support system (DSS) for better preparedness, rapid response and coordinated recovery in emergency situations.

“We are developing a framework to guide stakeholder needs analysis and integrating an advanced disaster support tool set.”

Professor Hossain has worked extensively with the Victorian Bushfire CRC and the NSW Ambulance Service on effective incident management.