I can’t tell you how many events and exercises I’ve been involved in and when I inquire about their planning efforts I am told “we’re too busy to plan”.   The concern that planning takes too much effort or time is actually partially the fault of current ICS training.  I’ve experienced and been told plenty of horror stories about people taking their ICS 300 class and being buried in FEMA forms which have little relevance to the organization’s environment.

 

The 2014 HICS revisions tried to help cure the IAP resistance by publishing the Quick Start form.  This is a good start but I’ll go one better. In order to help get buy-in from your Incident Management Team on the need for actually doing IAP I’m offering to send you a customized (IAP) Quick Start which is one piece of paper, printed double-sided. I am confident with a little bit of effort to train your team members this form will work for 75% of your events where you should be using the HICS IAP process.

I am a passionate believer in the ICS when used as designed and customized for your organization.  Properly utilized it has the potential to save time, effort and mitigate unnecessary morbidity and mortality.  Feel free to contact me at abetteremergency@gmail.com to take me up on the offer.