Summer is fast approaching and wildfires are popping up throughout our provinces. Now is the time to prepare for an emergency response. IDEO assembled a simple guide to help in the process:
“Just like buying life insurance, or saving for a rainy day, a future emergency is an abstraction that’s hard to connect to our day-to-day priorities. And unlike seeing everyone else’s trash cans line the curb once a week, preparedness doesn’t have any visible prompts to encourage all of us to get with the program.
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Here are a few simple steps to get you started—collaboratively—in just a week. Share this with your family, your roommate, your colleagues, or your book club.
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1. Now: Follow Local Alerts. Follow local emergency alerts from the Fire Department and/or your local Department of Emergency Management. (Further info at BC Emergency Info and receive emergency notifications, BC Government News, and BCPrepared). FireSmart Canada also provides a Last Minute Wildlife Checklist: 
2. Tomorrow: Copy Your Documents: Take a photo of or scan your driver’s license, passport, lease/ownership documents, social security card, and other important documents.
3. This weekend: Gather Your Stuff. Print out a list of essentials, useful stuff, and personal items to get started.
4. Next week: Make a Plan. Use a form to help you facilitate the conversation, pick a meeting spot, and collect phone numbers on paper.
More on A designer’s guide to emergency preparedness via IDEO. Image above via B.C. lends first responders to Alberta to help with wildfires burning out of control.
Interested in how to prepare your clinic? Review of emergency preparedness in the office setting: How best to prepare based on your practice and patient demographic characteristics (April 2019) and Are you ready for an office code blue?: Online video to prepare for office emergencies by Dr. Simon Moore of UBC’s Department of Family Practice.
UBC Family Practice Residency Program: Abbotsford-Mission Site 