4 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Emergency Exercises

Is your health care team prioritizing exercise this summer?

July 15, 2024

As we hit the middle of summer, exercises and enhancing our emergency plans are among our top priorities—perhaps only second to vacations and coverage for our teammates who are on vacation.

This summer, HAP’s emergency management (EM) team had the opportunity to run a few exercises with various audiences. This process is invaluable as we learn from hospitals, long-term care facilities, county EMS, and other community organizations that are working to fine tune their emergency plans and processes.

Whether it is working through specific injects (scenarios) or the hotwash process—where we look at strengths, weaknesses, and immediate opportunities—we know we will leave these exercises with new insights and that our facilities will be better for it. Here are four things you should do to get the most out of your exercises:

1. Tap into your teams

Emergency management brings together a variety of stakeholders, from clinicians and administration to plant management and front-line workers. Consider the participant list the next time you have the chance to participate in an exercise and prepare yourself to be in awe of the wisdom and shared experiences within your staff. You won’t find a more diverse group of skillsets in health care. If you only see EM specialists in your exercise, you haven’t recruited hard enough across your organization.

2. Find the time

Inside our own organizations, we possess a wide span of knowledge. When we exercise with others, we exponentially increase the benefit.  Rarely do our emergency plans have us handling every hazard with our own knowledge, staff, and resources…so why would we practice in such a manner? Often it comes down to time constraints or the difficulty in scheduling, but these are only excuses or obstacles to overcome. If you’re facing a schedule crunch, look for opportunities that already exist with trusted partners and county-level emergency planners to get everyone together.

3. Speak up and encourage other voices

As participants in exercises, don’t ever be afraid to speak up and say how you would handle an inject or that your current plans don’t address the situation. Exercises should be the path to enhance our current plans prior to the real incident landing at our doorstep. It’s always better to learn from an exercise before you experience the real thing.

4. Test your findings

Don’t be afraid to repeat an exercise later on.  Often, we feel good that we engaged and identified some improvements, but then the next “thing” comes along and takes precedence, be it a survey, a real incident, or staffing challenges. There is always another task on our daily list. But if we repeat an exercise and test our improvements, we can determine if we were successful.

The bottom line

We can’t predict the next emergency we will face, but it’s helpful to remember that the EM cycle is a beautiful constant.

Plan, prepare, practice, evaluate.

Regardless of our day-to-day, the EM cycle is relentless and consistent, and so we must be as well.

For more information about emergency management exercises at your facility, contact Ryan Weaver, MBA, BSN, RN, CPPS, CHEP, manager, emergency management