Join Colorado ShakeOut Earthquake Drill & Get Credit for an CMS Emergency Preparedness Exercises

To: Health Care Community and Agency Administrators

From: Greg Schlosser, Branch Chief, Health Facility Education and Quality Branch

If your facility is looking for a way to meet one of the CMS emergency preparedness testing/exercise requirements, you can use the Great Colorado ShakeOut earthquake drill, which takes place on October 17, 2019. Healthcare organizations of all sizes can use this drill to get your staff, residents, patients, clients, volunteers and partners involved and prepared for being safe during earthquakes, and ready to provide services afterwards.

CMS' exercise requirement is to conduct and document two exercises annually:
- One must be a community-based full-scale exercise (defined by CMS as any operations-based exercise (drill, functional or full-scale) that exercises your functional capabilities by simulating an emergency that would impact the facility’s operations and their community.
- The second can be a tabletop exercise, which is a discussion based exercise, or another full-scale exercise.

To register for the Colorado Shakeout, go to https://www.shakeout.org/colorado/.

Suggestions for having your Shakeout participation count as a CMS exercise can be found at https://www.shakeout.org/downloads/ShakeOut_Drill_Manual_Healthcare_2019.pdf.

Other planning resources include:
Seven Steps to Earthquake Safety, will help you understand your risk, develop preparedness and mitigation plans and take action. Share this with your employees to encourage preparedness at home.

Webinar, Shakeout Your CMS Emergency Preparedness Exercise Requirements, was presented on 8/28/2019 by Mark Benthien (Global Coordinator, ShakeOut) and Nora O'Brien (COE, Connect Consulting Services).

For more information, contact Melanie-Roth.Lawson@state.co.us or 303-692-2819.