Emergency Preparedness

Appendix G – TRAINING/EXERCISE

Kern Medical Emergency Preparedness

Development of a Training Delivery Schedule Kern Medical will develop a regular training schedule for the emergency management program. With this completed, Kern Medical will now know the needs of the organization, how to address them, and how often to provide training to meet the skill and knowledge needs. Cost Analysis: Time and Budget Kern Medical will have a formal method of planning for training costs each year. There may be changes in the number of staff, the types of training, and the amounts of training each year. The lengths of each course may also change as laws, regulations and lessons learned change. Most classroom subjects can be presented individually in one hour or less, with the exception of specialized training such as ICS, CPR and First Aid. Most drills will last two to three hours. Exercises last from a half-day to a full day, depending on the type of exercise. Kern Medical will consider staff time for preparation and implementation of these activities. Kern Medical will also consider outsourcing costs from outside training organizations and consultants. Evaluation of Training Effectiveness Formal training requires evaluation. Many agencies preclude formal testing or evaluation from internal training due to the impact it has on participants. However, there is no way to ensure that the training material has taken hold unless performance and understanding are evaluated. Kern Medical will provide some minimum evaluation instruments for each formal classroom experience to ensure the objectives of the course have been achieved. This also helps the instructors to revise course materials or training modalities to ensure the effective use of staff time and costs. The same is true for exercises, which by definition will always have some form of evaluation as a formal after action report. Additional measurement devices are used after exercises in the form of critiques, After Action Reports, and Corrective Action Reports. External audits can also be used as a tool to evaluate the total training curriculum effort. Maintaining Training Records In all cases, a record must be kept of any training methodology that was performed for the emergency organization, including who received the information and the results of any evaluation. Records of required training elements must be kept with the individual’s personnel record and in the Emergency Management files.

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