Originally posted by Christopherstjo
I was probably unclear. It really doesn't matter how ASIS (or anyone else) uses the terms - they are what they are, although they are frequently misused. Basic procedures, SOPs and standards of practice form a rough hierarchy of procedural specification and decision-making. Perhaps I can draw an analogy from the field of medicine since you graduated from nursing school.
1. The method for performing hospital decon of an unknown chemical would be called a basic procedure. There may be some limited variations of the technique, but the basic techniques/variants are very limited, involve very limited and closely proscribed decision-making, and would not typically differ from facility to facility, or from community to community. If, for instance, the technique calls for "flushing with copious quantities of water" in Chicago, this doesn't change to "flushing with copious quantities of gasoline" in Houston. Decon is performed the same basic way wherever it is performed.
2. Each site, however, would have a standard operating procedure for performing decon that would impliedly presume the basic procedure will be used, of course, but would also include other matters that are relevant to that facility, such as where within the facility it can or should be performed, forms that must be completed, people who must be notified, what assistance must be on hand, and perhaps even the circumstances under which the SOP can be supervened by medical urgency, etc. SOPs are almost always site-specific and might, but need not, address matters of basic technique. Also, SOPs usually address a more complex level of operational procedure and therefore subsume more than one basic technique, performed by different personnel. For instance, the SOP for decon might reference duties to be performed by security personnel as well as the ER personnel (e.g., facility lockdown), without discussing the exact methods for facility lockdown, although reference might be made to other documents in which those basic methods are outlined.
For another example, the SOP for bomb threats would subsume the basic techniques for the individual who takes the call (gathering call information and making proper notification), the individual who makes the response decision, the individuals performing facility lockdown, the technique(s) to be used for evacuation of that facility, and the technique(s) for the search of that facility. In each case, it might merely reference, rather than specify, the basic technique to be used. For instance, the SOP might merely state that "The ATF procedure for threat call-taking will be used".
3. Returning to the healthcare industry, the medical community at large establishes standards of practice (and there are both "general" and "community-based" standards of practice). These arise both formally (by the pronouncements of relevant bodies such as the National Emergency Medicine Association) and informally (de facto), and while they may address basic procedures, they usually have more to do with the parameters that must be addressed by hospital decon SOPs, the parameters for medical decision-making, etc. Within a "standard of practice", there may be an infinite variety of site-specific SOPs that satisfy the standard so long as the parameters identified are addressed appropriately.
Within this context, the matters that you appear to be addressing are those of basic methods or techniques. There are, indeed, basic methods for building evacuation - a number of them, in fact. A facility's SOPs would then address which basic methods will be used, by whom, under what circumstances, and who will make that decision. When creating its SOP, a facility would, both for reasons of competence and legal reasons (liability), want to make reference to whatever authoritative standards of practice it can identify that would be applicable, and these might come from a variety of sources such as the fire community, the EM community, an industrial association, etc.
This, then is the hierarchy: Basic procedures are subsumed by SOPs, and SOPs are (or should be) created, so far as possible, in conformance with standards of practice when they can be identified. This hierarchy, incidentally, is the reason that security officers need both training in basic methods as well as site-specific training in that facility's SOPs, and is also the reason that security managers who write the SOPs must, in turn, know where and how to find, and write SOPs in conformance with, standards of practice.
The mistaken interchange of these terms is fairly common, even in professional literature, but even more often in court documents (i.e., malpractice suits). I've even seen the basic procedure for placement of an intramedullary femoral rod referred to as a "standard of practice"; it is, of course, no such thing. At best, it is presumed by a standard of practice. The decision to place a rod under given circumstances (i.e., given the nature, extent and location of the fracture, degree of osteoporosis, the patient's age, lifestyle, fall risk, and comorbid medical conditions, etc.) would fall within the definition of a "standard of practice" for the treatment of femoral fractures. This "standard of practice" would also be likely to contemplate many other options for treatment and how the treatment decision should be made. The rough continuum is from one extreme that involves basic skills and fairly limited knowledge, to the other extreme that involves broad principles and complex domains of expertise and collective experience.
Understanding the distinction between these terms is terribly important to the training community for very obvious practical reasons. "Training", and particularly the training you are talking about, is typically skills-based, and usually addresses basic techniques and limited situational intraprocedural decision-making. If the trainer is involved in creating organizational SOPs, or is a member of a body that establishes standards of practice, these are secondary roles, and are performed in collaboration with many others.
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