Skip to main content

Twenty-Two Critical Access Hospitals Participate in Drills

Jun 11, 2024

Twenty-two North Dakota Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) and their CAH-owned/operated Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) participated in table top drills, which focused on active shooter situations. Two days were available for the drills, which focused on planning, preparing, and testing the emergency preparedness plan of each facility in response to an active shooter scenario.

These drills are part of the emergency preparedness compliance for both the CAHs and RHCs. The training was sponsored by the North Dakota Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility (Flex) program housed at the Center for Rural Health within the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences.

Participants

Participating CAHs and CAH-owned/operated RHCs include:

Jody Ward

"Ensuring the CAHs in North Dakota remain in compliance is one of our top priorities," said Jody Ward, grant program director for Flex. "We were pleased to be able to coordinate this training with so many hospitals across the state."

Training

Tressa Sacrey, director of compliance and education for Health Services Associates, facilitated the table top drills to meet the testing requirements.

The training included time for teams to pause and discuss their clinic's unique perspective for the scenario presented. A discussion guide, hotwash document, and formal after action report was provided to track the clinic's response and meet all documentation requirements.

Each facility had a designated staff person to ensure all necessary discussion was held within each team and the documents were kept up to date. The full team was required to attend the virtual training.

Chris Gathright, human resource coordinator at Jacobson Memorial Hospital in Elgin, North Dakota, appreciated the training. "The staff at Jacobson Memorial Hospital found the exercise very resourceful and it brought out so many valuable ideas. Thanks for allowing us to take part in it!"