CDPHE Pneumonic Plague Functional Exercise Series

Player Briefing

Date: TBD by local HCC Partners

Welcome and Introductions

• Name

• Organization

• Exercise role

Agenda

• 08:30 Player Briefing– Scenario information– Exercise safety plan

• 09:00 Exercise Play begins

Exercise Overview

The purpose of this exercise is to execute player actions against current response concepts, plans, and capabilities for the response to a Pneumonic Plague incident. The exercise will focus on the coordinated response by all community partners.

The purpose of the Player Briefing is to address individual roles and responsibilities, exercise parameters, safety, security badges, and any remaining logistical exercise concerns or questions

PHEP/HPP Capabilities:

• Mission Set– Response

• Public Health Emergency Preparedness Capabilities– Recovery and Continuity of Operations– Emergency Operations Center Coordination– Information Sharing– Medical Surge– ADD ADDITIONAL CAPABILITIES AS NECESSARY

Exercise Objectives

• Healthcare coalition members and ESF 8 partners will monitor public health, medical, and mental/behavioral health needs of the community, throughout incident response, to ensure health system recovery operations are ongoing.

• Healthcare coalition members will demonstrate their ability to coordinate emergency response procedures, utilizing the established jurisdictional response framework (including ESF 8) to activate or support a local emergency operations center, within one hour of event notification.

Exercise Objectives

• Evaluate the ability of the incident response structure (including ESF 8) to maintain agency, healthcare coalition and community level situational awareness by disseminating pertinent event information as it is gathered, utilizing existing and redundant means of communication and following locally established processes and procedures, throughout incident response and recovery.

• Evaluate the ability of the ESF 8 response structure to maintain and support the activation of local healthcare emergency response processes; including tracking patients and monitoring the status of each healthcare facility, within four hours of event notification.

Exercise Objectives

• HCC should add agency or HCC specific injects here

Scenario• On October 26, _______ County hosted a large sporting

event with approximately 20,000 people in attendance. In preparation for the sporting event, the complex held two mandatory training days for all 150 event staff on (October 22 and 23).

• Event staff were being trained to perform customer service tasks such as ticket handling, food preparation or service, direct sales of tickets, or leading people to their seats.

Scenario• Small groups of trainees would work closely with a

trainer to learn each task, and the trainees mingled freely sharing smokes and drinks with one another during breaks.

• On the afternoon of the first day of the pre-event training (October 22), one member of the event staff, John Smith, suddenly became ill with fever, headache, cough and chills.

Scenario• John told his co-workers that the week prior to the

mandatory training (October 12-19), he spent time at his grandparent’s farm helping his grandpa clean out an old barn with a history of rodent infestation.

• His grandpa told him the squirrels at the farm had been dying recently. John really needed the job so he continued with the training, though he felt quite ill.

• John had a cat on the farm, who lived mainly outside. The cat had recently seemed sick, but John had allowed him inside and onto the couch with him.

Scenario• By the second day of the pre-event training (October 23),

John’s symptoms had worsened. He became nauseated and was coughing frequently.

• His supervisor took him to the hospital where he was diagnosed with pneumonia.

• Tests for viruses came back negative and it was unclear what infectious agent was causing the pneumonia.

• With the exception of the supervisor who drove the employee to the hospital, none of the other event staff paid much attention to their sick co-worker, and everyone else completed the two day training.

Scenario• On the day of the sporting event (October 26), 6 of the 150

event staff called in sick (including the supervisor who had taken John to the hospital) but the remaining staff showed up for work.

• People began pouring into the stadium, interacting with the staff.

• Some of the event staff who were working weren’t feeling well and were coughing. A few of them even had to leave work as they felt too ill to continue.

Scenario• After the sporting event, local area hospitals and clinics

noticed a significant increase in patients presenting with fever, chills, and exhaustion.

• Some of these patients also had respiratory and pneumonic symptoms.

• Influenza testing was negative in these patients, and hospitals struggled to identify the agent causing the illness.

Scenario

• Since the disease had a respiratory component and appeared to be transmissible person-to-person, hospitals began to enforce their applicable infection control protocols related to controlling the spread of the disease including the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and appropriate patient isolation.

Exercise Participants• Local Public Health

Agencies• Hospitals• Clinics• Long Term Care Facilities• Community healthcare

providers• Law Enforcement• EMS Providers• Medical

Examiner/Coroner

• Community based ‐Organizations

• Environmental Health Agencies

• Local Emergency Management

• State Emergency Management

• VOAD Partners• Community Response

Partners

Exercise Support

There will be multiple staff members and volunteers supporting exercise play.

These roles include:– Observers– Controllers– Evaluators– Support staff

Exercise Identification (Should be modified to reflect local

colors/identification)

• Controllers – Orange Vests with identification

• Evaluators – Orange Vests with identification

• Observers – Orange Vests with identification

• Players– Normal uniforms

Exercise Artificialities• Exercise communication and coordination will be limited

to participating exercise organizations, venues, and the CDPHE SimCell.

• Only communication methods listed in the Communication Plan will be available to players to use during the exercise.

• Participating agencies may need to balance exercise play with real-world emergencies. Real-world emergencies will take priority.

Exercise Play

• Exercise Set Up: 8:00 am• C/E Briefing: 8:15 am• Player Briefing 8:30 am• StartEx: 9:00 am• EndEx: 12:00 pm• Hot Wash: Immediately after EndEx

Safety• Safety is EVERYONE’S concern.

• Safety concerns override exercise execution.

• Be aware of your environment and the responder’s activities.

• Controllers and evaluators must immediately inform the Safety Controller or Senior Controller of the safety concerns.

• Actual emergencies will be identified by the phrase “Real-World Emergency”.

Exercise Communications• The exercise communications plan enables players to:

– Communicate with other exercise participants– Report emergencies or safety issues– Report major timeline events– Acknowledge communication checks and issues

• The primary means of communication will be telephone and radio

• A list of phone numbers and positions can be found in the Exercise Plan (ExPlan) under the Communications Annex

• Use the phrase “This is an exercise” before and after any exercise messaging

Exercise Documentation

• Exercise Plan• Player Evaluations• Necessary Supporting annexes

– Communication plan– Venue information

(Insert other applicable player documentation)

Evaluation Overview• The goal of exercise evaluation is to assess an

organization’s capabilities to accomplish a mission, function, or objective

• Evaluators will observe and record evaluation notes throughout the exercise

• Evaluation is accomplished by: ‒ Observing the event and collecting supporting data‒ Analyzing the data to compare performance against expected

outcomes‒ Reporting exercise outcomes in the AAR and CDPHE AAR

Survey

Administration Details

• Restrooms• Emergency Exits located at the end of the hallways• Food and Water (If being provided)• After Hot Wash, please return:

‒ All documentation (EEGs and any notes/logs)‒ Participant feedback form

Player Roles and Responsibilities

Conduct of the Exercise

• Emergency Response to a pneumonic plague scenario

• There may be follow-up exercise injects• Subsequent player actions are self-directed• Scenario timeline is constant

Player Roles During the Exercise

• Conduct operations as normally as possible• Follow safety guidelines• Wear your exercise identification• Follow any instructions given by exercise

controllers• Respond as you normally would during a real

incident, following locally established processes and procedures

Player Roles After the Exercise

• Participate in the Hot Wash– Be prepared to provide constructive feedback on

things that went well during exercise play, as well as areas of improvement

– Record and report any observed gaps • Complete and submit your Participant Feedback

Form• Provide copies of all logs, notes, and other

documentation to the controllers

Final Reminders• Safety comes first. Use the phrase “real-world

emergency” when an emergency occurs• Know your role and responsibilities• Follow established response procedures and

guidelines• Have fun! We hope this exercise is beneficial to

your agency, coalition and community!

Questions?