2026 Agenda

Presents a practical case study of how a hospital emergency management program was strengthened following a comprehensive audit. The presentation will describe how the audit findings were rapidly translated into prioritized, risk-informed actions, with a focus on strengthening governance, accountability for emergency preparedness, business continuity planning, and executive team engagement within a constrained timeline. It will highlight practical strategies used to align preparedness activities with accreditation expectations, integrate emergency preparedness and continuity planning, and embed resilience into day-to-day operations. Attendees will gain actionable insights into responding effectively to program audits, implementing sustainable improvements under time pressure, and advancing emergency management program maturity in complex healthcare environments.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• Learn practical approaches for prioritizing and implementing risk-informed actions quickly following an emergency preparedness audit
• Understand how clear leadership structures, defined responsibilities, and executive engagement support a more resilient emergency management program
• Discover strategies to align preparedness activities with accreditation standards while embedding resilience into everyday hospital operations

Extreme weather is increasingly exposing hidden vulnerabilities in healthcare systems, often not within the hospital itself, but across critical off‑site infrastructure and utilities. From substations in floodplains to water supplies compromised by wildfires, hospitals are facing cascading risks that challenge continuity of care, patient safety, and organizational resilience.

This session explores how climate‑driven hazards impact power, water, fuel, communications, and other essential services that healthcare facilities depend on. Through real‑world examples and risk‑based insights, attendees will gain a clearer understanding of where traditional emergency planning falls short, and how leading organizations are strengthening preparedness by addressing utility dependencies, external failure points, and compounding risks. 

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• Identify critical off-site utility dependencies most likely to disrupt patient care
• Understand how infrastructure failures cascade into clinical and operational impacts
• Strengthen emergency plans using real-world scenarios that reflect extreme weather and recovery constraints.

As healthcare organizations expand in scope, geography, and service complexity, establishing a unified approach to Emergency Code Preparedness and Response becomes both a logistical and cultural challenge. This session explores how Bayshore HealthCare—a panCanadian, multiservice healthcare organization—implemented standardized Emergency Codes across diverse business lines and care settings, ensuring consistent emergency response practices from coast to coast.

The presentation will highlight Bayshore’s journey-based approach to designing and operationalizing a comprehensive Emergency Codes Preparedness and Response Program. Participants will learn how foundational elements such as standardized policies, universal emergency language, and cross-functional leadership structures were used to create organizational alignment.

Beyond the introduction of Emergency Codes themselves, the session will unpack two critical components of system-wide readiness:

• The Escalation Pathway for Code Orange (LargeScale Emergency Events): How Bayshore developed and operationalized a coordinated escalation model using incident command principles, corporate oversight, and local response procedures to support our staff and clients during natural disasters, infrastructure failures, and system disruptions
• The Essential Role of Business Continuity Planning (BCP): Why every service line must maintain an uptodate BCP, and how Bayshore embedded continuity planning into emergency preparedness to ensure critical operations continue in the face of catastrophic interruptions to ‘business as usual’

Emergency management and healthcare organizations continue to invest heavily in technology, yet many teams still fall back on spreadsheets, emails, whiteboards, and phone trees during critical incidents. Why?

Drawing from frontline experience and conversations across the emergency management community, Laura examines why even strong tools struggle to gain traction during high-pressure situations. This session goes beyond the software itself to address culture, trust, training fatigue, leadership buy-in, and the persistent “we’ve always done it this way” mindset.

Empowered teams don’t just use technology…they operationalize it.

Key Session Takeaways Include: 

• Overcome common adoption barriers and demonstrate quick wins and operational value
• Integrate technology into everyday operations before emergencies occur
• Apply real-world lessons learned from healthcare and EM professionals across North America

The new National Standard of Canada, CAN/HSO 9002:2026 Climate Resiliency, Emergency and Disaster Management, is currently in development to address the growing need for resilient health and social service systems. The standard supports organizations in effectively assessing, planning, preparing for, managing, and recovering from the increasing frequency and severity of climate-related and other emergencies and disasters.

The standard outlines an integrated, systems-based approach to emergency and disaster management for health and social services, developed in collaboration with the communities they serve. It builds on the existing HSO 9002 Emergency and Disaster Management standard, with an expanded scope that explicitly incorporates climate resiliency.

Development of the standard is occurring alongside complementary work at HSO to advance value-based health care by embedding climate resiliency and sustainability across standards, accreditation, and tools. As part of this work, the Climate Action Maturity Assessment has been developed in partnership with the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care and will be released this summer to help organizations benchmark progress, identify practical actions, and share effective practices.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• An overview of the development of the CAN/HSO 9002:2026 Climate Resiliency, Emergency and Disaster Management standard and key considerations informing its design
• How to contribute to the standard during its upcoming Public Review
• How the Climate Action Maturity Assessment aligns with HSO standards and Required Safety Practices to support improved quality of care and climate resiliency

We plan for emergencies, and we improve ongoing processes. What happens when we implement and integrate process improvement tools and techniques into emergency planning? This presentation covers three examples of emergency plans and the tools we applied including process mapping, PDSA, simulation, and standard work.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• Increased familiarity with process improvement tools (FMEA, PDSA, Process Mapping, RCA, Simulation, Standard Work) and their relation to Emergency Planning tools
• Ability to appropriately identify when process improvement tools or engagement could benefit the emergency planning process, and where to start

Corporate orientation, onboarding, learning management system (LMS) training, and exercises remain essential pillars of emergency preparedness in healthcare. This session builds on those established practices by exploring how organizations can further strengthen staff readiness through continuous, multimodal education and awareness.

The presentation will highlight how William Osler Health System’s Emergency Management and Business Continuity program, in close partnership with Professional Practice & Clinical Nurse Educators, have established a coordinated, sustainable approach to emergency preparedness education. Foundational learning introduced during corporate orientation and onboarding is intentionally reinforced through a suite of complementary strategies, including Preparedness Check-Ins (organization-wide emergency code awareness features), Stop and Think Exercises (brief, scenario-based team discussions), simulation based interprofessional education, digital tools such as animated educational content, mobile access to emergency codes and procedures, and leveraging existing technology such as I-Huddle boards.

These initiatives are supported by a centralized online resource hub that provides educators, managers, and leaders with consistent access to emergency code materials, exercise resources, and preparedness tools. Together, these elements form a sustained and accessible preparedness model that supports staff confidence and readiness across the organization.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• Describe how a multimodal education approach can complement existing emergency management training and awareness models
• Identify practical strategies for reinforcing emergency response expectations beyond orientation and onboarding
• Explain how brief, scenario-based discussions can support team-based preparedness in clinical settings
• Explore how digital tools and mobile platforms can enhance access to emergency preparedness resources

Healthcare organizations today face a growing range of risks—from pandemics and cyber incidents to extreme weather events, infrastructure disruptions, and mass casualty situations. Preparing for these complex threats requires more than emergency plans on paper; it demands an integrated, enterprise-wide approach that aligns risk management, operations, clinical leadership, and external partners.

In this session, Trillium Health Partners, will share how one of Canada’s largest community-based hospital systems is strengthening its emergency preparedness strategy through a coordinated, system-level approach. Drawing on real-world experience, Haajra will explore how Trillium Health Partners is embedding risk-informed decision-making, improving incident command structures, and enhancing readiness across multiple hospital sites.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• Learn how healthcare organizations can align risk frameworks with emergency response planning to strengthen resilience across the system
• Understand how clear governance structures and collaboration between clinical, operational, and leadership teams improve crisis response
• Discover practical strategies to embed emergency readiness into everyday operations, training, and organizational culture

Healthcare environments face a wide range of emergency scenarios, from security threats and workplace violence to facility disruptions and impacts from natural hazards. In these situations, rapid, reliable communication is essential to protect patients, staff, and visitors while ensuring a coordinated response across complex hospital operations.

This session explores how healthcare organizations can modernize their emergency communication strategies through enterprise mass notification systems. Using the implementation of the Shared Health Safe App as a real-world case example, the presentation will highlight how hospitals can deploy integrated alerting tools to get people the information they need to take protective actions when every second counts.

Attendees will learn how the platform supports situational awareness, enables faster decision-making, and integrates with existing safety protocols such as Code alerts, lockdown procedures, and incident command processes. The session will also discuss key considerations for implementation in healthcare environments including governance, staff training, interoperability with existing systems, and change management.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• Understand the role of mass notification in healthcare emergency preparedness
• Learn from our experience implementing a publicly available mobile safety app within hospital environments
• Identify strategies to integrate mobile alerting with existing hospital emergency codes and workflows
• Explore approaches to improve staff awareness, response speed, and organizational resilience during critical incidents

This presentation reviews the planning, execution, and outcomes of a full-scale active attacker exercise conducted in a vacated hospital facility. The exercise tested hospital lockdown procedures, internal and external communications, interagency coordination with police and paramedics, and explored hospital staff roles in supporting paramedic operations during an internal mass casualty event.

Exercise Design: Using the realistic layout of a former acute care hospital, the scenario simulated an active attacker with multiple casualties across clinical and non-clinical spaces. Objectives included validating active attacker plans, assessing command and communication structures, evaluating triage and patient movement workflows, and identifying opportunities for hospital staff to augment paramedic capacity.

Key Outcomes: The exercise revealed operational gaps not evident in tabletop or lower-fidelity drills, including challenges in interagency communication, command integration, corridor access, and clarity of staff roles under dynamic threat conditions. It also highlighted untapped opportunities for hospital personnel to support EMS during mass casualty incidents.

Takeaways:

• Attendees will gain practical strategies for planning complex multi-agency exercises, maximizing realism while managing risk
• Lessons to strengthen preparedness for active attacker events in healthcare settings