Extremely panicked? Don’t be afraid, crisis communication maintains community peace

If you’ve seen the mid-1990s movie Outbreak, you’ll understand how a fictional virus in a fictional town can quickly affect the local population and the local institutions responsible for keeping them safe. This isn’t just what happens in Hollywood movies, it’s what happens in our reality—in order to stay safe, countries must be extremely well prepared when facing health crises.

Delivering information in times of crisis

Zika virus, which is spread by mosquito bites, became a widespread epidemic in 2007. Helping to control the disease required urgent coordination of public health and disease control experts at the international and local levels, including in the United States. That work is still ongoing.

There has been a recent measles outbreak in New York City, although it is not as large as the Zika virus, but New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has declared a public health emergency in New York. As the number of patients continues to rise, the severity of the outbreak is obviously unclear and the information is not transparent enough, so he ordered unvaccinated people living in Williamsburg and Brooklyn to get the measles vaccine. If you don't comply with the regulations, you will face a violation charge and may be fined $1,000.

If a disease outbreak leads to a lack of information, misinformation or mass panic, the best way for managers and emergency stakeholders is to ensure that the right information reaches the right audience at the right time from a trusted source. In any crisis, the situation can change rapidly, leading to rumors on social media, congested phone networks and general confusion in an information vacuum - which can be a huge challenge for government officials.

So how can governments, agencies, local councils and private organisations get their message across in times of crisis? A well-designed crisis communications plan can help.

Adopt emergency response plans to deal with outbreaks

Epidemics are an urgent challenge that is very different from disasters such as floods, fires, or terrorist attacks. In these cases, people must be removed from danger as quickly as possible, and the active threat of infection must be contained to a specific area.

Epidemics require a different approach. Individuals infected with the disease must be identified as quickly as possible and isolated from the general population. And individuals who have not yet contracted the disease, such as unvaccinated New Yorkers, need to know when and where they can get treatment and who to consult for further information—this requires clearing the channels of consultation.

If the right information is delivered - meaning that small areas can be locked down or targeted with some help, rather than unnecessarily evacuating large areas, which would cause huge damage and economic impact. And it would also be easier to locate and control the network of people who have come into contact with disease carriers. The tighter the geographic quarantine is set, the sooner the epidemic can be mitigated and controlled.

Even the best-laid plans can go awry.

To be truly effective, emergency preparedness planning must understand these differences: disease outbreaks may need to be focused on a small geographic area, such as certain areas in New York, or they may require a nationwide crisis management agency to help control the outbreak, such as managing infected people traveling by plane.

Crisis communications systems designed to control epidemics must operate across the various networks, media, and devices used by different agencies, first responders, and medical personnel. It is also important to get information from the front lines, such as medical personnel treating infected people or first responders dealing with new outbreaks. Alert systems must have two-way communication capabilities to make it easier to find out who needs help and simplify the task of coordinating those who can help. The alert system should know who is nearby who can help and should be able to contact them automatically. If a team member cannot help, or if a response is not received, it will automatically alert the relevant personnel.

Another area where epidemic control also requires a different approach is in the dissemination of information to the public. Diseases and epidemics can trigger fear in people. This can erode the trust that helps unite people in a disaster. It is important to warn people from trusted sources and keep them updated regularly. Similarly, it is crucial to send information instantly to mobile phones, laptops, speakers, digital TVs, social media or any other connected device through multimodal technology, rather than relying on one technology (such as text messages).

Today, people often use train or flight apps to receive notifications of train or flight delays, or use weather apps to prepare for various weather conditions. If a city uses a crisis communication system like BlackBerry AtHoc, citizens can sign up to receive emergency alerts and updates. This way, New York City can determine who is in a high-incidence area during a certain period of time and directly inform these citizens that they may have been infected with measles and must go to certain hospitals for treatment.

It is also important that all communications be protected using authentication and encryption, and that government security and privacy regulations are followed. It is critical that first responders and public health officials carefully manage information. This content must be carefully protected so that only thoroughly vetted and authorized information from known reliable sources is released to the media and the public.

Handle emergencies and keep people safe

With new regulations, next-generation technologies, and a world full of threats and ever-changing circumstances, the rules of emergency preparedness are being rewritten. Infectious disease outbreaks are real. So are fires, floods, cyberattacks, and physical threats. The recent outbreak in New York is yet another reminder of how important it is to be able to react, notify, communicate, and respond in a timely manner to control an incident or take swift action to save lives.

Governments and private organizations must be prepared for any eventuality. To help them, BlackBerry has designed crisis communications software that handles the complex tasks that must be accomplished when responding to emergencies such as sudden illness. In addition to keeping people informed, it also addresses the critical need to get up-to-date information to government departments, hospitals and other local, regional, national and international agencies with a responsibility to provide care.

BlackBerry AtHoc protects millions of people in thousands of organizations around the world. The Red Cross also uses BlackBerry's alert system to manage employees, partners, citizens and other personnel, and to disseminate critical and time-sensitive information in real time. During daily life, the alert system is also used to process various spreadsheets, call trees and personnel-related data, which previously could take hours or even days to process manually.

Finally, I want to reiterate that in times of crisis, the best way for managers and emergency stakeholders is to ensure that the right information is delivered to the right audience at the right time from a trusted source. Finally, I hope that cities around the world will take the recent measles outbreak in New York City as a lesson and take a hard look at their existing systems and processes. Posting on social media or relying on local news is no longer an acceptable way to communicate with the public - especially when people's health and safety are at risk.