eICS Glossary

Activate

Incidents and ICS positions can be activated. Incidents are activated when they are noticed, and this means the incident is in the response phase. ICS positions are activated to add them to an incident response guide (IRG), or if the position was previously deactivated and will now be assigned.

Administrator

eICS users are assigned roles, which include the Domain Administrator and Facility Administrator roles. User roles have different permissions, and users with administrator roles are charged with certain responsibilities in the incident command system (ICS). Domain Administrators are responsible for establishing and managing the facilities, library, and contacts in their domain, while Facility Administrators establish and manage the library and contacts for their facility.

Assign

During an incident, contacts are assigned to positions in the ICS Chart. The assigned contact is then the active contact for that position, and contacts that were assigned previously are removed.

Availability request

During an incident, contacts associated with an active IRG receive a notice about the incident and a request to respond with their availability to fulfill the obligations of a certain role for that incident.

Candidate

Contacts who are either members of the depth chart for active positions when the incident was created or who were manually selected (enlisted) after incident creation. Includes contacts added to the Labor Pool during planning (General Staffing). It does not include contacts specified in the Other Contacts to Notify area.

Contact

Individual in a facility or domain who has or may have some type of role in an incident or during planning for and recovering from an incident. Related term: external contact

Contacts to notify

Individuals who are not directly involved with incidents, but need to be notified when one occurs. By default, these individuals are not included in your list of candidates, but can be enlisted to assist during an incident.

Deactivate

Used in a couple of contexts within eICS. Authorized users can deactivate a contact so that the individual cannot be assigned to ICS position or deployed to an incident. The deactivated contact does not have access to eICS. In addition, an ICS position can be deactivated when it is not needed for a particular incident.

Depth chart

A facility's list of potential contacts who are or may be able to fill each specific ICS position in the chart.

Domain

Entity that purchases eICS for use at one or more facilities. A domain might be a group of facilities such as a health system, an individual facility, or a georgraphic area.

Enlist

Contacts included in your Other Contacts to Notify list are not automatically included in your list of candidates when an incident occurs. Enlisting is calling upon these individuals to respond to the incident; the system automatically sends the Request Availability notification to the individual and places them on the candidate list.

EOP

Emergency Operations Plan

Escalate

Feature that allows you to extend an active incident to accommodate an expanded event or situation. Example: A fire on your campus triggers evacuation of a building.

Excuse

Candidates who were initially notified of the incident (due to being identified in the depth chart of this IRG) and responded with their availability. Incident Command did not assign them to an ICS position. Excusing the candidate generates a notification indicating their services are not needed for the incident.

External contact

Individual associated with a facility who may need to be notified of incidents without being a user of eICS.

Examples: vendor providing goods and/or services; county emergency management coordinator

Facility

Entity representing an individual organized unit, such as a hospital, nursing home, agency, business, educational entity, or other type of organization.

General notification

Contacts who are automatically notified of an incident, but who are not requested to respond with their availability for the incident (Other Contacts to Notify).

General staffing

Contacts who are contacted during an incident with a request for their availability, but who are not targeted for a specific ICS position (Labor Pool).

Health system

Entity representing a group of affiliated facilities; also referred to as a facility group.

Incident

"(A)n occurrence, natural or manmade, that requires a response to protect life or property." (FEMA, NIMS Resource Center, http://www.fema.gov/emergency/nims/Glossary.shtm)

Incident commander

Individual responsible for all activities associated with the incident, including the development of strategies and tactics, as well as the ordering and release of resources. The commander has overall authority and responsibility for conducting incident operations within Command Center. This ICS position must be active for all incidents.

Incident response guide

Set of tools built into eICS to address types of emergencies and hazards; this template allows the incident command team to name and describe the threat and plan an effective response through using the objectives established for this type of incident and the documents assigned to specific ICS positions. Also referred to as an IRG.

Labor pool

Individuals who are not directly involved with patient care and are not associated with a predefined ICS position, such as facility employees in Human Resources, administration, and food services. During an incident, your Command Staff may need to call on these individuals to address immediate nonmedical needs, such as transporting clients. These individuals are included in your list of candidates to be assigned to ICS positions.

Library

Organized set of directories (hierarchical) where a facility or domain stores and shares documentation.

Response tracker

Feature that tracks the status and assignment of contacts in the candidate list for positions within the ICS chart. This information is made available in the ICS Chart tab of the incident's dashboard.

Role

Grouping of rights and permission that allows administrators, users, and external contacts varying levels of access to eICS and its features.

Staff

Individual within an organization who is associated with emergency management planning, response, and/or recovery; this individual is a user of eICS.

Unassign

Remove a contact from an ICS position; the ICS position remains active for this incident.

User

Individual who has access to eICS. Related term: contact