The Basics of Preparedness Exercises

Objectives

Fundamentals of Exercises

Types of exercises

Evaluations

Documentation types

Next steps

Why do we conduct exercises?

Clarify roles and responsibilities

Improve interagency coordination

Find Resource gaps

Develop individual performance

Identify opportunities for improvement

Exercises

Play a vital role in national preparedness

by enabling whole community stakeholders to test and validate plans

and capabilities, and identify both gaps and areas for improvement.

Bring together and strengthen the whole community

in its efforts to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from all hazards

Cost-effective and useful tools

To practice and refine our collective capacity

To achieve the core capabilities in the National Preparedness Goal.

Eight key steps to exercise design

Setting the exercise foundation

Selecting participants for planning team and developing timelines

Developing objectives and identifying core capabilities

Identifying evaluations guidelines

Developing the exercise scenario

Creating documentation

Coordinating logistics

Planning for exercise control and evaluation

Types of Exercises

Discussion Based Exercises

Discussion-based exercises familiarize participants with current plans, policies, agreements and procedures, or may be used to develop new plans, policies, agreements, and procedures. Types of discussion-based exercises include:

Seminars, Workshops, Tabletop Exercises (TTX), Games

Operation Based Exercises

Operation Based Exercises validate plans, policies, agreements and procedures, clarify roles and responsibilities, and identify resource gaps in an operational environment. Types of operations-based exercises:

Drills, Functional and Full Scale

Drills

Coordinated, supervised activity

Employed to test a single, specific operation or function within a single entity

Functional Exercise (FE)

Examines and/or validates the coordination, command, and control between various organizations

(Health Department, LTC, Hospitals,

Emergency operation center, fire, EMS,

Does not involve any “boots on the ground” (i.e., first responders or emergency officials responding to an incident in real time).

Full Scale Exercise (FSE)

Multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional, multi-discipline exercise involving functional (e.g., joint field office, emergency operation centers, EMA, Fire Department, etc.) and

“Boots on the ground” response (e.g., firefighters decontaminating mock victims).

Copied from IS 120

Copied from IS 120

Evaluation

Can also be referred to as “hot wash” or debriefing

Hot wash: immediately after the event/exercise

Debrief: happens later, report out from various locations/departments

Many tools can be used.

Should be evaluated by those participating in the exercise

Example of Debriefing/Hot Wash tool

Topic heading Observations strength / opportunity

Observed at (name of facility)

Other comments

Sample - type in your observations Opportunity Type your comments

Notification

Communication

Command structure

Safety and Security

Management of Patients

Resources ( people, places or equipment or supplies)

Utility system

Staff knowledge

Best practices

Improvements from previous drills

Other topics

After Action Plan

Should be documented and shared with appropriate agency leadership and others

Written summary

Power point presentation

HSEEP written documentation

Can include your HICS forms

Basic Components

Summary of the event

Strengths

Opportunities

Next steps

What

When

Who

Example of the HSEEP after-action improvement plan

Core CapabilityIssue/Area for

ImprovementCorrective Action

Capability

Element

Primary

Responsible

Organization

Organization

POCStart Date

Completio

n Date

Core Capability 1:

[Capability Name]

1. [Area for

Improvement]

[Corrective Action

1]

[Corrective Action

2]

[Corrective Action

3]

2. [Area for

Improvement]

[Corrective Action

1]

[Corrective Action

2]

[1] Capability Elements are: Planning, Organization, Equipment, Training, or Exercise.

This IP has been developed specifically for [Organization or Jurisdiction]

as a result of [Exercise Name] conducted on [date of exercise].

Using June 6th as a FE Example

MSEL- Master Scenario Event List

Sim Cell/ phone book or method of contact

Regional Debrief

Player Prebrief

Controller Evaluator training

Documents

AAR/IP

ExPlan

Player Guide

California Emergency Preparednesshttp://www.calhospitalprepare.org/

Questions?

Ken Johnson, Deputy Director

Clark County Emergency Management Agency (EMA)

(937) 521-2178

kjohnson@clarkcountyohio.gov

Christina Conover

Clark County Combined Health District

(937) 390-5600 ext. 279

cconover@ccchd.com

www.clarkhcc.com