Emergency Preparedness Week: Drills and Exercises

This week is Emergency Preparedness Week! This year’s theme is “Be Prepared. Know your Risks”. The intent of the theme is to encourage us all to understand the risks in our area and learn what actions we can take to protect ourselves, our families, and our community.

Emergency Preparedness at TBRHSC

Here at TBRHSC we recognize the importance of running regular emergency preparedness drills and exercises to help us test and validate our response plans, policies, procedures, and capabilities. They also help us identify strengths, areas for improvement, and potential best practices.

So far this year Interprofessional Education and Emergency Preparedness have successfully completed the following drills and exercises:

  • 4 Code Blue
  • 4 Code Red
  • 2 Code Black
  • 1 Code Pink
  • 1 Code White
  • 1 Code Amber
  • 1 Fan Out

Thank you to everyone who’s engaged so far! These have been great learning opportunities for the entire organization, with drill observers reporting active participation from across the hospital.

But it doesn’t stop there. Check out the list of drills and exercises we have planned so far for later this year:

  • 7 Code Red & 1 Code Red to Code Green (Minimum Staffing)
  • 3 Code Blue
  • 3 Code NRP
  • 2 Code Pink
  • 1 Code White
  • 1 Code Amber
  • 1 Code Orange – Stage 1
  • 1 Fan Out

Note: the above list doesn’t even capture upcoming exercises that include collaboration between TBRHSC and external stakeholders, such as the City of Thunder Bay’s annual emergency management exercise.

Future goals include improving our ability to capture who has attended mock codes and exercises, as well as improving our methods of capturing participant feedback. We are also dedicated to enhancing and formalizing our debriefing processes.

How to request a drill

For general inquiries, reach out to Mēsha Richard, Lead, Emergency Preparedness (Mesha.Richard@tbh.net) or contact Brittney McLaughlin (Brittney.McLaughlin@tbh.net Mock Code Blue), Holly Freill (Holly.Freill@tbh.net Mock Code White), or Jennifer Gadioma (Jennifer.Gadioma@tbh.net Mock Code Pink & NRP).