Disaster Preparedness
Natural or man-made, disasters can be scary, chaotic, and tragic events. ANA is helping to ensure disaster preparedness and response is robust in this country, and helps you be personally and professionally prepared for a disaster.
Always have a personal and family disaster plan. Thinking about being a volunteer responder? The time to register is before a disaster, not during one. Choose a volunteer responder organization that matches your desired level of response.
ANA has educational opportunities for nurses on disaster preparedness. When we are a prepared profession, we can cope and help our communities recover from disasters better, faster, and stronger.
Helping You Be Prepared
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) - Guidance for Mass Decontamination
Patient Decontamination in a Mass Chemical Exposure Incident: National Planning Guidance for Communities - ANA Issue Brief: Who Will Be There? Ethics, the Law, and a Nurse's Duty to Respond in a Disaster
Unresolved issues of legal, ethical, and professional considerations of disaster medical response remain a challenge and could hamper the ability of nurses to respond. A concerted effort to solving these problems is needed, with nurses and stakeholders at the national, state, and local levels. - IOM Report on Establishing Altered Standards of Care in Disasters [PDF]
Documents from ANA
What Nurses Need to Know
Be Competent: Education
ANA considers disaster preparedness and response a part of nursing practice. For nurses, it has become part of the curriculum at many institutions of nursing education, better enabling future nurses with the skills to prepare for and respond to emergencies. In addition, nurses can find continuing education and competency development offered by several nursing and non-nursing organizations, drawing from text books and articles written by nurses. ANA strongly recommends that RNs take a formal class or certification course, enabling them to keep up with the latest skill development and education by reviewing nursing journals and other nursing literature, or just keeping up with disaster preparedness and response organizations’ web sites.
