Improved situational awareness also increases the effectiveness and efficiency of these activities and resources by allowing for better targeting of their use during an incident. 

Situational awareness is enhanced and improved by the following items:   

• Infrastructure, technical and clinical requirements and administrative provisions of triage, diagnosis, consultation, treatment, support, compensation, administration, and education relating to information technology (IT) and telemedicine objectives 
• Bio-surveillance systems that might identify and facilitate investigation of a threat  
• Logistical and dynamic operational needs and asset requirements and support of an ongoing theater of activity

The components of situational awareness are:  

• Nature of the incident (e.g., agent or cause, response timeline, severity)  
• Personnel (e.g., volunteers, paid staff) 
• Non-personnel resources (e.g., medical material, facilities)  
• Projections about future changes (e.g., severity, skill sets)