Evidence-based health emergency management: an oxymoron?

Emergency management is a discipline historically led by responders such as police, fire and emergency medical services. Its methodologies have not been subject to the evidence-based enquiry found in academic sciences. How can public health and the health sector adapt to the accepted structures and processes of emergency preparedness and response and vice versa? What components of health emergency management have been studied and what are the outcomes of these studies? Dr. Brian Schwartz will examine assumptions that have informed this discipline, address myths and realities, discuss the components of health emergency management that have an evidentiary base, and propose future directions.

Presenter: Dr. Brian Schwartz

Dr. Brian Schwartz is chief, Emergency Preparedness, and executive lead, Service Integration, for Public Health Ontario (PHO). In this role, he leads PHO’s response to health emergencies, outbreaks and incidents. During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, he chaired the Provincial Scientific Response Team and served as co-incident manager for health consequence management for the 2010 G8/G20 summits. Dr. Schwartz practiced emergency medicine for over 30 years and was director of the Sunnybrook Base Hospital from 1996 to 2009. In 2003, he was vice-chair of the SARS Scientific Advisory Committee and was later scientific advisor to the Emergency Management Branch, Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Currently, he is an associate professor in the department of family and community medicine at the University of Toronto.