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Coalition-wide exercises support greater coalition coordination, communications, and response capabilities.
The Network collaborates with partners on training needs in the healthcare community. NWHRN hosted trainings can be found on the calendar or referenced in the latest WA State Healthcare Situational Awareness Brief. Please connect with us at info@nwhrn.org if your organization is looking for a training resource.
The Network offers two annually recurring exercises to practice, test, and course-correct healthcare coalition plans and provide opportunities for hospitals and non-hospital healthcare partners to participate in community-wide exercises. The Medical Response Surge Exercise (MRSE) is designed and conducted by NWHRN. The Shiver Me Timbers! earthquake fall exercise series includes exercise template documents designed so that participants can conduct the exercise themselves with minimal guidance from NWHRN. Coalition-wide exercises support greater coalition coordination, communications, and response capabilities. Exercises are designed with regulatory requirements in mind.
The Medical Response Surge Exercise (MRSE) tests the ability of NWHRN and its partner organizations to support an overwhelming medical surge event in an effort to foster preparedness and emergency response planning. This exercise is focused on acute care hospitals, EMS, public health, with other emergency response partners encouraged to participate. Expectations of healthcare partners include engagement of organization senior leadership in decision-making during the exercise and participation in the debrief immediately following the exercise. NWHRN generates an After-Action Report based on observations during the exercise, debrief, and individual participant feedback received following the exercise.
The 2026 MRSE Confluent Goal After Action Report (AAR) is available HERE.
The Network’s fall exercise generally coincides with the Great Shakeout earthquake exercise held annually on the third Thursday of October. NWHRN has created the Shiver Me Timbers! template exercise series focused on Long Term Care, Skilled Nursing and in-patient Hospice, though any healthcare entity may tailor the materials to their organization’s needs. The Shiver Me Timbers! exercise is not limited to October – it may be run at any time the organization desires. The exercise follows the ‘crawl, walk, run’ model and is designed to accommodate organizations that may be less familiar with conducting disaster exercises. Learn more about the Shiver Me Timbers! exercise and template documents HERE.
The purpose of the Spring 2024 CommEx was to evaluate the capabilities of the Northwest Healthcare Response Network (NWHRN) to effectively reach healthcare partners and notify them of incidents and provide ongoing situational awareness during a low notice/no notice event to closely mirror actions that would be taken during a real-world event. Through an analysis of strengths and areas for improvement, the exercise aimed to identify opportunities for enhancing emergency communications.
The results of the communication exercise indicate that NWHRN was overall successful when reaching partners, specifically via text message, in which we saw a large improvement from the Fall 2023 CommEx. Thank you to all of our partners who participated in the exercise we appreciate your engagement in the ongoing efforts to ensure our emergency communication is successful. Please see the 2024 Spring CommEx AAR available HERE.
For more information about training and exercises, please contact info@nwhrn.org.