National Incident Management System (NIMS) Training

Required by all Vanderbilt Medical Center staff

The events of September 11th and the more recent natural disasters in the United States have illustrated the need for and importance of national standards for incident management. To provide standards for domestic incident response, President Bush signed Homeland Security Presidential Directive-5 authorizing the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop the National Incident Management System (NIMS).

With this directive, personnel at all levels of government and within the private-sector including hospitals, must be appropriately trained to improve all-hazards incident management capability nationwide.  The NIMS provides a consistent nationwide approach for all levels of incident responders to work effectively and efficiently together to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents, regardless of cause, size, or complexity.

In order to comply with this federal and state mandate, all VUMC staff must complete NIMS training.  Training is available either online or as a live presentation:

• ONLINE:  To complete your training online, log on to VandySafe at www.vandysafe.com, then click on “VUMC Staff – Complete the Emergency Response NIMS Training Profile.”   Once you have completed this Profile, the correct training assignment will be available within a few minutes on your VandySafe Home page where Current Training is listed.  If you need assistance with VandySafe, please consult the VandySafe FAQ (http://www.safety.vanderbilt.edu/training/vandysafe_faq.htm).

• LIVE:  To request a live presentation of the NIMS training for your department, please call Gail England 3-3189 gail.england@vanderbilt.edu.

More information about NIMS and this training requirement is available at
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nims/imp_hos.pdf

If you have questions about Emergency Preparedness and Response at VUMC, please contact Pam Hoffner @ pam.hoffner@vanderbilt.edu