Hosted by Public Health Ontario
Emergency preparedness exercises are often promoted as an effective strategy to test and strengthen preparedness capacity by simulating public health emergencies. Updates to Ontario’s Emergency Management Standard have emphasized the importance of conducting annual exercises to test assumptions, relationships and plans, and identify opportunities for improvement. To maximize their value, it is essential to identify best practices and to learn from the common challenges encountered in exercise design, delivery and evaluation. This Public Health Ontario (PHO) Rounds presents the results of a recently published rapid review on this topic. Ten practices to strengthen exercises will be discussed, capturing insights from the literature related to exercise design, scenario development, exercise facilitation, evaluation and quality improvement. This session also highlights key learning resources and tools available to support the conduct of emergency preparedness exercises in public health.