Table 2.

IT roles in each phase of emergency management according to experts opinions.

Emergency management phase	Identified gaps	what tools are more powerful/useful	Future direction
Prevention/mitigation	*inadequate education for societies against infection outbreak before occurrence it *inadequate monitoring and controlling system in many countries * Lack of accurate predictive and forecasting models before the infection pandemic *inadequate management of resources equipment, human, etc.)	*virtual reality for training aims *mobile health capabilities for education aims *Internet of Things IoT) and surveillance system for health monitoring aims *Robotics for monitoring purposes and using them as an alternative for human resources * developing infection control system in hospital for alerting general symptoms of patients *AI and deep learning methods for developing forecasting models	*Communities should learn how to respond to infection outbreaks in stressful conditions so the use of a designed VR environment can immerse users in simulated situations to experience the adverse condition and learn how they should answer to infection epidemics before the occurrence of them *countries should be equipped with IoT and surveillance systems to screen and monitor the people and environmental factors to provide safe and healthy communities. *development of robots can play an essential alternative for limited human resources and hazard tasks. *Hospitals should be equipped with control systems to control the environment and patient condition automatically *forecasting and predictive model should be used for predicting emergency conditions for conducting prevention efforts. *improvement of IT literacy in communities
Preparedness	*inadequate management of resources such as healthcare centers, human resource *Inadequate education and informing about adverse effects of an infectious outbreak and efforts against the pandemic * inefficient smart technologies to help early screening and diagnosis before the pandemic occurs *inadequate information system for help manages, governments, and healthcare providers in decision making	*mobile technologies for education aims *information systems for management and control of resources *VR for preparing people to respond against infection disease *develop robots for doing hazardous tasks and alternative for human resources * development of smart cities by using intelligent technologies for screening people across cities *development of decision support system for clinical and administrative aims *improvement of IT infrastructure in countries	*mobile technologies can improve people skills for preparing people to respond to infection outbreaks when a pandemic occurs *VR should be used for preparing people before pandemics to education response, prevention, and preparedness requirements *cities should equip with smart technologies for early screening and diagnosis of patients e.g., IoT could be used for measuring body temperature, or surveillance system for monitoring detecting disease symptoms.) *improvement of IT infrastructure *improvement of electronic-governments in each industry such as healthcare, business, education, and so on *clinical and administrative DSS could help to achieve an optimal decision, especially in stressful conditions.
Response	*Lack in immediate response to pandemic *Inadequate in the use of all IT capabilities in some countries	In the response phase, all types of technologies must be used to achieve an effective response see Table 1)	*Effective response to a pandemic is related to good planning in the prevention and preparedness phases, which should be considered in communities. * developing IT-based services delivery in healthcare and business are essential issues in immediate response o pandemics
Recovery	Need to planning at present for post-crisis	*Mobile technologies, telehealth, social media, and VR can be used for mental health recovery. *Use or continue the use of technology-based business and health services for saving time and cost e.g., telehealth, telemonitoring, online services, and so on) *management of resources by using information systems *Administrative DSS for helping managers to achieve optimal recovery *providing educational contents for transmitting experiences in the future	*mental disorders such as depression, stress, and phobia are common after infection outbreaks, and IT-based technologies such as telemedicine, mobile health, and VR can play a critical role in the recovery phase *Negative effects of outbreaks in economy and business could be improved by using IT-based solutions such as online services delivery and decision support systems for administrative and clinical aims. *Using databases and big data for providing strategic planning in the future *Using decision systems can help managers make decisions by considering different dimensions such as time, place, cost, resources, etc. *Improvement of IT infrastructure and literacy