Preparedness and response program

INTRODUCTION: After the approval of the country's crisis management law, the upstream documents related to this law, including the preparedness and response programs at the national and provincial levels, are among the tasks assigned to increase the efficiency of the crisis management processes. METHODS: This study presents a general framework for developing a provincial crisis response program. The proposed process has been used to develop the crisis response program of Hamadan province. In the phase of understanding the current situation, questionnaires and in-depth interviews were used to collect field data and determine the challenges presented to crisis management in Hamadan province. Moreover, a method for allocating the specialized functions of the response phase to the provincial organizations has been presented using the national crisis documents. FINDINGS: In general, the findings of this research can be assigned to three groups. The first group pertained to the project method, including the stages of understanding the current situation and developing the response program of the provinces. The second group of findings was the summary of the analysis of field data collected regarding the state of preparedness and response in Hamadan province. The third group encompassed determining and allocating specialized crisis response functions in Hamadan province. The functions of the provinces (n=32) and after their compliance with the national functions, the crisis management law, and the capabilities of the existing organization in the province, 56 specialized sub-functions were identified in the provinces, and the responsible, collaborating, and supporting institutions were determined. CONCLUSION: As evidenced by the obtained results, in the process of function allocation, some problems have been identified due to the shortage of information in the upstream documents, which are suggested to the crisis management organization for better planning.