Ohio hospitals use SimulationDeck to practice communications strategies that will help keep their patients safe
Ohio hospitals use SimulationDeck to practice communications strategies that will help keep some of their tiniest, most vulnerable patients safe.
For their severe weather and pediatric medical surge exercise scenario, the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) wanted a way to effectively challenge hospital public information teams across the state.
To add realism to the exercise, ODH turned to SimulationDeck to provide an engaging platform for ODH and four participating hospitals to disseminate public information, alerts, and warnings, and perform other critical crisis communications functions. During the half-day exercise, Nusura subject matter experts represented members of the public, concerned hospital patients and their loved ones, journalists, and other interested parties, and posted news stories, blogs, social media posts and other content onto the SimulationDeck platform.
This content challenged more than a dozen hospital communicators and executive leadership teams to address hundreds of questions, rumors, and comments on simulated social media platforms with timely and accurate information. The participating hospitals worked together with ODH to coordinate messages, respond to rumors and respond to media inquiries, in a realistically high-pressure, real-time exercise environment.
The Challenge
Functional exercises provide a unique opportunity to exercise plans, policies, and procedures. However, without intentional planning, these exercises can lack an engaging way to effectively test public information capabilities. For their severe weather and pediatric medical surge exercise scenario, the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) wanted a way to effectively challenge hospital public information teams across with the added complexities and challenges of social and traditional media engagement.
The Approach
During this exercise scenario, a tornado hit a hospital and required the transportation of hundreds of patients to regional hospitals. To add realism to the exercise, ODH turned to SimulationDeck to provide an engaging platform for ODH and four participating hospitals to disseminate public information, alerts, warnings, and perform other critical crisis communications functions.
During the half-day exercise, Nusura subject matter experts represented members of the public, concerned hospital patients and their loved ones, journalists, and other interested parties. The team posted content such as news stories, blogs, social media posts and other content onto the SimulationDeck platform.
Hospital communicators worked together to issue emergency alerts and warning messages, provided general information, and identified and responded to rumors.
The Results
This content challenged more than a dozen hospital communicators and executive leadership teams to provide timely and accurate information to address hundreds of questions, rumors, and comments on simulated social media platforms. The participating hospitals worked together with ODH to coordinate messages and to respond to rumors and media inquiries in a realistic, high-pressure, real-time exercise environment. As a result, these teams are now more prepared to work together and provide effective information in a real crisis.
