The assessment tool is currently best suited for exploratory analysis and process improvement. Future testing, including field-testing and more formal pilot-testing, and refinement of the tool might provide a tool ready for accountability. Although the tool was designed for use in measuring crisis decision making for public health emergencies, and primarily at the local and state levels, it could ultimately have applications at the federal level and beyond public health emergency preparedness, such as other areas of homeland security and emergency management.
... the tool focuses on group decision making and overt behaviors, such as explicit discussion among decision makers and completion of Incident Command System (ICS) forms.
Thus, the tool requires decisions that require deliberation among two or more individuals, at a location in which decision-making processes can be directly observed. The assessment-tool items assess the execution of specific observable activities, which can be categorized within the three general processes.
In the future, the tool might also be adapted to serve as a real-time decision aid or operational tool, or as a complement to computer-based simulation approaches to measuring crisis decision making in public health emergencies. The tool's use as a process-improvement resource could also be enhanced by pairing it with decision aids and suggested strategies for overcoming problems revealed by use of the tool.
Please Read and Comment on Full Document Available (PDF) from RAND or direct download hereAlso see OSHA's eTool here
