The Caduceus Shield Exercise Initiative provides America's public health agencies with a comprehensive approach for assessing disaster and emergency planning, preparedness, response and recovery capabilities.

The initiative's exercises have been developed to assist public health agencies with disaster and emergency planning efforts and to help agency management and employees to understand how to respond to situations they do not face in their daily work environment.

Caduceus Shield exercises are designed to provide an opportunity for public health boards, agencies and departments 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, functional and full-scale 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

Public health agencies have been participating in ONX System exercises since March 2010. View what public health agencies are saying about using the ONX System.

Project Public Health Ready

All Caduceus Shield exercises are designed to meet the Project Public Health Ready goals and objectives.

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 public health agencies 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 public health agency 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.

Public Health Agency 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 the specific needs of your public health agency.

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

Examples of exercises developed to meet a specific need for a single public health agency can be accessed below:

Recurring Public Health Agency Exercise Series

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