ARCHE Coalition Great Northeast Shakeout

Each year on October 17^th at 10:17am, participants from all over the United States and the World take part in the Great ShakeOut Earthquake Drills, which offers multiple, discipline specific options to plan, prepare, practice, and evaluate an organization’s response and recovery from an earthquake.

This year, the Region 2 HMCC Program Staff will be taking part with an internal Duty Officer Tabletop Exercise utilizing the Great Northeast Shakeout materials to test the Region 2 HMCC Response Plan, duty officer communications, and regional risk communications. In addition, this opportunity is being offered to all Stakeholders in Region 2 to participate; see the instructions below. Stakeholders who wish to participate will register on the VTTX Eventbrite page, as well as through the Great Northeast Shakeout website (it is important that all participants register on both sites).

Approximately two weeks before the VTTX, registered participants will receive the following for use during the VTTX:

1. Situation Manual
2. Exercise Evaluation Guide
3. Exercise Facilitator Guide
4. Participant Evaluation Form

Participants may be requested to page the Region 2 HMCC Duty Officer with incident specific injects to support the Duty Officer exercise as well. Following the VTTX, participants will take part in a region-wide after-action discussion, or hotwash.

This VTTX may be used to meet training and plan testing requirements of the CMS rule.

Please refer to the Shakeout website for more information: https://www.shakeout.org/healthcare/index.html.

Instructions to participate in the ARCHE Coalition Great Northeast Shakeout VTTX:

1. Register your facility on the ARCHE Coalition Great Northeast Shakeout VTTX Eventbrite Page (please ensure the person registering is the proper point of contact for your facility).
2. Register your facility on The Great NorthEast ShakeOut website.
3. Receive exercise documents from the Region 2 HMCC Staff (approximately two weeks prior to the VTTX).
4. Make any changes/updates to the documents you need, in order to meet your organization’s specific goals (please maintain the scenario as presented in the Situation Manual). These documents are being provided as a starting point to support Stakeholders’ completion of their own internal exercise.

It is the responsibility of the individual Stakeholder entity to complete ALL exercise requirements, update documents as needed to reflect specific organizational goals, and be in compliance with CMS regulations. The Hotwash portion of the exercise is the ONLY portion facilitated by the HMCC Program Staff and must be attended in order to receive credit.

Further details will be provided to all registered participants. Space is limited and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

Thank you and please feel free to reach out to myself, Alissa, and Katrina with any questions.