Santa Clara County emergency officials are facilitating a
hospital active shooter training and exercise from 1 to 2:30 today.
The large scale scenario has been designed to test the county’s
medical/health emergency response systems in the event of a
hospital security threat. The training exercise is being held at
the DePaul Medical Center in Morgan Hill.
Santa Clara County emergency officials are facilitating a hospital active shooter training and exercise from 1 to 2:30 today. The large scale scenario has been designed to test the county’s medical/health emergency response systems in the event of a hospital security threat. The training exercise is being held at the DePaul Medical Center in Morgan Hill.
The training seminar will allow participants from public health, mental health, hospitals, law enforcement and emergency medical services to discuss and share response plans, protocols, lessons learned and best practices. The plans will then be tested in a multi-disciplinary full-scale exercise that will simulate a hospital active shooter incident with multiple casualties.
“Recent real world events of a similar nature have prompted the Santa Clara County Public Health Department to provide a training opportunity for hospitals and emergency response officials to come together and exercise plans, policies, and procedures as they pertain to a hospital-based active shooter event in Santa Clara County, ” said Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, Santa Clara County health officer. Previous exercises in Santa Clara County have identified the need to further practice the interface between disciplines and to organize as unified command. The exercise has been designed to require a multi-jurisdictional, inter-agency response that will test hospital security response, law enforcement response/take down, incident command management systems, EMS triage, and a mental health response.
After the exercise, evaluation data collected by the exercise design team will be used to identify strengths and areas for improvements based on a number of exercise objectives and target capabilities. Some of the expected outcomes include updating plans for hospitals, improved communication and coordination between hospitals, law enforcement, and EMS, and overall increased preparedness and confidence of hospital personnel and responding agencies to effectively respond to an active shooter threat.
Participating agencies include the Santa Clara County Public Health Department, Santa Clara County Emergency Medical Services Agency, Santa Clara County Office of Emergency Services, Santa Clara
County Mental Health Department, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, Santa Clara County Fire Department Morgan Hill Police Department, Palo Alto Police Department, Gilroy Police Department, El Camino Hospital Los Gatos, El Camino Hospital Mountain View, Good Samaritan Hospital, Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, O’Connor Hospital, Regional Medical Center of San Jose, Saint Louise Regional Hospital, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, Stanford Hospital and Clinics, American Medical Response, Pro Transport One, Royal Ambulance Service, WestMed Ambulance, Silicon Valley Ambulance and the Silicon Valley Red Cross Chapter.
