Leveraging collaborative networks in infrequent emergency situations / Donald P. Moynihan.

"June 2005."

Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-37).

Undertsanding collaborative networks -- Collaborative networks in action: the Exotic Newcastle Disease Task Force in California -- Looking forward: increasing the effectiveness of collaborative networks.

"Traditionally, a collaborative network depends on ongoing informal relationships and trust built among its members over a long period of time. This report addresses the question: ?How can networks be effective in infrequent emergency event situations?? Infrequent emergency situations are characterized by team members not knowing each other and coming from different organizations, with different professional disciplines and different operational training. This report summarizes insights from one such case, the outbreak of Exotic Newcastle Disease in California in 2002?2003. The disease is highly contagious and fatal to chickens, but not humans; however, it put the entire U.S. poultry industry at risk. In this infrequent emergency situation - which last occurred 30 years before - federal, state, and private sector partners used a task-force-based management framework, called the Incident Command System (ICS). ICS was originally developed by the Forest Service to combat forest fires. As a result of a Department of Homeland Security Presidential Directive issued in 2003, it is now increasingly being used in other emergency situations. Adapting a task force approach to containing a fast-spreading disease was novel and successful. Participants found that the task force approach helped team members learn, codify, and share standard operating procedures based on field experience. The team also learned how to create staffing continuity over the course of the effort and apply developmental technology to speed the flow of information across a team highly distributed across several states." -- p. 3.