Project Overview

Florida's Department of Health has asked the Disaster Resistant Communities Group (DRCG) to undertake an initiative to assist the state's community health centers and other health care providers in developing and exercising Continuity of Operations Plans. As part of this important initiative DRCG will:

• Provide for the continuous offering of  a site delivered COOP Workshop  throughout the state.

• Provide access to COOP Builder, a secure internet based COOP development system, to each health care provider participating in a COOP workshop.

• Assist individual health care providers with programmatic and technical assistance as the develop their COOP within the COOP Builder.

• Facilitate and evaluate a ongoing  series of tabletop exercises utilizing the internet based exercise application known as the ONX System.

An ongoing offering of the COOP Workshop will be facilitated for the state's health care providers utilizing curriculum specifically developed for this initiative. The curriculum is designed to provide each participant with a thorough understanding of the process of developing and implementing a Continuity of Operations Plan. The training sessions will be the foundation from which each heatlh care provider will build their COOP.

Continuing Education Units will be provided to certain health care professionals upon their successful completion of the COOP Workshop.

Training Schedule:

There is NO CHARGE for participation in any of the training.

COOP Development

Upon completing the  COOP Workshop, each  health care provider will be provided access to  secure internet based COOP Builder system.

Utilizing the lessons learned during the COOP Workshop and with programmatic and technical assistance via a Help  Desk supported by DRCG, health care providers will undertake the development of viable Continuity of Operations Plans .

Once individual COOPs are completed each health care provider  will have on-going access to the COOP Builder system. This will allow each  health care provider to have easy access to their plan  as well as providing a simplified means of maintaining an up-to-date COOP.

Health care providers from across the state will have access to  an ongoing series of Continuity of Operations Plan Tabletop Exercises. These exercises will be facilitated utilizing the   ONX System.

These exercises and their After Action Reports will serve as a validation of disaster planning and preparedness efforts for each participating health care providers.

Each of the exercises have been designed to take approximately two and one half hours to facilitate.

Health care providers are encouraged to sign-up for one of the exercises listed below:

There is NO CHARGE for participation in any of the exercises.

COOP Guidelines

Throughout this initiative DRCG will assist  health care providers to meet the guidelines found in the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) - Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Policy Information Notices (PIN) # 2007-15 and 2007-16.

Policy Information Notices

Additional Information

If you would like additional information regarding this important initiative please contact us.