The Caduceus Shield Exercise Initiative provides community / rural / tribal health care centers with a comprehensive tool for assessing disaster and emergency planning, preparedness, response and recovery capabilities. The initiative's exercises have been developed to assist health care centers with disaster and emergency planning efforts and to help management and employees to understand how to respond to situations which they do not face in their daily work environment.

Caduceus Shield exercises are designed to provide an opportunity for a single health care center or coalition of health care centers to participate in a meaningful exercise with measurable outcomes. The initiative provides an alternative to the traditional time consuming and costly approach to conducting tabletop and functional exercises by utilizing an internet based exercise delivery system to design, facilitate and evaluate exercises

All Caduceus Shield exercises are facilitated via the internet based application entitled ON-Line eXercise (ONX) System which allows individuals and teams to participate in an exercise from their normal base of operation or any other convenient location with internet access.

Information on the ONX System can be found at ONXSystem.com.

A discussion and information forum for all who are interested in, support or participate in the Caduceus Shield Exercise Initiative.

Join the Caduceus Shield Exercise Initiative LinkedIn group today.

Testimonials

Health care providers have been participating in ONX System exercises since May 2010. View what health care emergency managers and others are saying about using the ONX System.

US Department of Health and Human Services Policy

All Caduceus Shield exercises are designed to meet the requirements of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) - Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Policy Information Notices (PIN) # 2007-15 and 2007-16.

Homeland Security Exercise & Evaluation Program

Caduceus Shield utilizes the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) system for exercise design, facilitation and evaluation.

HSEEP compliant Exercise Evaluation Guides (EEG) are utilized to assess the various planning / preparedness, response and recovery capabilities and capacity of health care centers participating in all Caduceus Shield exercises.

After Action Report / Improvement Plan - Inject Response Report

An HSEEP compliant After Action Report / Improvement Plan (AAR / IP) is generated at the conclusion of all Caduceus Shield exercises. This report is based on an exercise specific Exercise Evaluation Guide and the observations and recommendations of an on-site evaluator. Each health care center will need to provide an internal evaluator for the exercise.

In addition all responses to injects and descriptions of actions taken by exercise participants during a Caduceus Shield exercise are captured within the ONX System and exported to generate an Inject Response Report at the conclusion of the exercise.

Exercise Scenarios

Core tabletop and functional exercises are available for the following scenarios.

Health Care Center Specific Exercise Development

The experienced team of exercise designers associated with the Caduceus Shield Exercise Initiative can develop, facilitate and evaluate an exercise designed to meet your health care center's specific need.

Please complete the Information Request Form if you would like additional information regarding designing your health care center's next exercise.

An example of an exercise developed to meet a specific need for a single health care center can be accessed below:

Recurring Health Care Center Exercise Series

A scheduled series of recurring Caduceus Shield exercises can be accessed below: