PUBH X740 - Incident Command Systems: The Public Health Role
Description
*This Public Health Institute course will be online via Zoom and Canvas and will not be meeting in-person.
Cheryl Petersen-Kroeber, BS, MEP
Director
Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response
Minnesota Department of Health
Almost any disruption to a community impacts the public’s health. This course is designed to provide public health professionals with the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively manage personnel and resources in an emergency incident. This course will provide an overview of how the standardized ICS system is applied within the context of public health. During disasters, public health has a responsibility not only to respond to specific public health threats but also to ensure that essential public health services are maintained for the affected community. The incident management system provides a formalized and common method of management practices applicable in virtually any setting. By understanding incident management systems, public health professionals will be better prepared to lead their agency’s response in crisis situations where interaction with other local, state, tribal, and federal partners is crucial. The health professional’s ability to understand and apply incident management system techniques is a core competency for public health leaders. This course is not a substitute for required National Incident Management System training courses, it is intended to demonstrate how the use of the incident command system can be used by public health partners.
This non-credit course meets with the academic course PubH 7227-101 as part of the 2025 Public Health Institute.
Enrollment for this course will open on February 27, 2025.
Additional information can be found on the Public Health Institute website.
Objectives
At the conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:
- Describe the laws and standards that require an organized “all-hazards” approach to incidents.
- Compare and contrast the “command and control mode” of the Incident Command System with traditional public health consensus-building decision-making process.
- List the elements of an effective Incident Management System.
- Describe the various roles of those involved in managing an event or incident.
- Describe the potential roles of the public health professional in an Incident Management System.
- Apply principles of incident management to a designated scenario.
- Evaluate an organization’s capabilities to participate in and/or implement the various elements of an Incident Management System as they relate to public health preparedness and response.
Competencies
The core competencies for public health professionals are a consensus set of skills identified by the Council on Linkages (CoL) between academia and public health practice as being desirable for the delivery of the essential public health services. The CoL competencies identified for this course are:
Domain 1: Model Leadership
- 1.2 Manage behavior associated with emotional responses
- 1.3 Facilitate collaboration with internal and external partners
- 1.4 Maintain situational awareness
Domain 2: Communicate and Manage Information
- 2.4 Collect data according to protocol
- 2.5 Manage the recording of data according to protocol
- 2.1 Manage information related to an emergency
Domain 3: Plan for and Improve Practice
- 3.4 Refer matters outside of one’s scope of legal authority through the chain of command
Domain 4: Protect Worker Health & Safety
- 4.3 Report unresolved threats to physical and mental health through the chain of command
- 4.1 Maintain personal/family emergency plans
Registration & Cancellation
The registration fee for this course is $595. You will receive an email letter outlining program logistics two weeks prior to the start of the course.
Requests for refunds will be honored in full if a written cancellation request is received prior to the course start date. An administration fee of $50 will be charged to all refund requests received after the first day of class. The University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH) reserves the right to cancel any course. In the event of a course cancellation, registrants will receive a full refund of the program registration fee. SPH is not responsible for refund of travel or other costs incurred by registrants.
SPH will provide a certificate of attendance verifying 1.5 CEUs (15 contact hours) offered for this program. This course is eligible for 15 CPH recertification credits.
All courses are approved for CPH Recertification Credits by the National Board of Public Health Examiners.