Project Overview

Healthcare systems must be prepared to rapidly expand capacity during large-scale emergencies while maintaining patient care, coordinating resources, and communicating effectively across multiple organizations.

As Exercise Director, I led the planning and execution of the Regional Medical Response Surge Exercise (MRSE), a multidisciplinary exercise designed to evaluate hospital medical surge capabilities, executive decision-making, regional coordination, and healthcare system resilience.

The exercise brought together hospitals and regional healthcare partners to validate emergency operations, strengthen communication, and identify opportunities to improve coordinated medical response across Southwest Ohio.

The Challenge

Medical surge incidents place extraordinary demands on healthcare organizations.

Hospitals must simultaneously manage:
-Increased patient volumes.
-Resource shortages.
-Staffing challenges.
-Executive decision-making.
-Regional communication.
-Patient movement.
-Coordination with emergency management and public -health.

The exercise needed to realistically challenge executive leadership while remaining practical, collaborative, and focused on measurable improvement.

My Approach

As Exercise Director, I led the complete exercise lifecycle using HSEEP methodology.

Responsibilities included:
-Conducting planning meetings with regional stakeholders.
-Developing exercise objectives aligned with ASPR Hospital Preparedness Program capabilities.
-Creating realistic patient surge scenarios.
-Developing Exercise Plans (ExPlans), Situation Manuals (SitMans), facilitator materials, injects, and evaluation tools.
-Coordinating hospital participation and executive engagement.
-Managing exercise facilitation and controller activities.
-Leading hot washes and After-Action Reviews.
-Developing Improvement Plans to support ongoing preparedness initiatives.

Results & Impact

The exercise strengthened regional healthcare coordination while validating critical response capabilities.

Key accomplishments included:
-Engaged hospitals and regional healthcare partners in coordinated medical surge planning.
-Evaluated executive decision-making and regional communication.
-Identified opportunities to improve EMResource utilization, patient tracking, communication, and executive engagement.
-Produced comprehensive After-Action Reports and Improvement Plans.
-Strengthened relationships among participating organizations and reinforced regional coordination.

Skills Demonstrated:
-HSEEP Exercise Design
-Medical Surge Planning
-Executive Facilitation
-Healthcare Preparedness
-Multi-Agency Coordination
-After-Action Reporting
-Improvement Planning
-Project Management

Key Takeaways

Medical surge planning is most effective when healthcare organizations practice together before emergencies occur. This exercise demonstrated how realistic scenarios, collaborative planning, and structured evaluation strengthen regional readiness while building trusted relationships among healthcare partners.