
REMEMBER, RECHARGE, and RECONNECT
“Learn from the past, prepare for the future, live in the present.”
-Thomas Monson
What health care workers experienced over the last two years will be talked about for generations to come. We suffered professional and personal losses, pushed ourselves beyond our limits, and learned more than we ever expected. Fortunately, one of our greatest strengths is resiliency. Through it all, we strengthened ties with our colleagues, communities, and families.
Now it’s time to come together. REMEMBER, RECHARGE, and RECONNECT.
Spend two days with your colleagues as you learn more about disaster planning, past, present, and future. Not only will you hear from experts in the field, but you will get an opportunity to network with peers, share your ideas and lessons learned, and celebrate the milestones that brought you each together. You deserve this!
This will be the first in-person Disaster Conference since 2019. Unable to attend in person? Not to worry. We will have a livestreaming option.
Note: Livestreaming includes all keynote and general sessions plus select breakout sessions.
Tuesday, September 13
8:00 – 9:00 a.m. | Registration & Exhibitor Viewing
9:00 – 9:15 a.m. | Opening Comments
9:15 – 10:15 a.m. | Keynote Session — Resilience Through Chaos
Rebecca Thomas, LMSW, Counselor, Tania Glenn & Associates, PA®
Now, more than ever, first responders and health care workers must be resilient. Resilience means being, living, working, and playing well. It means living the best life possible. While most people want to be more resilient, many simply do not know how. This session helps participants define and understand resilience and teaches ways to build resilience in a no-nonsense and completely achievable way.
10:15 – 10:45 a.m. | Exhibit Show and Best Practices Poster Showcase
10:45 – 11:45 a.m. | General Session — Platinum Pediatric Surge Playbook: Catastrophic Capable
Cynthia Frankel, RN, MN, Pediatric Surge Lead, HPP LEMSA Liaison and EMSC Coordinator, WRAP-EM Working Group & Alameda County EMS; Michael Frogel, MD, Chairman, National Pediatric Disaster Coalition; Mary A. King, MD, MPH, Medical Director, Trauma Pediatric ICU, Harborview Medical Center, University of Washington; Damien Siwik, Project Manager University of Michigan, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital
This session provides a proposed Model State and Multi-Jurisdictional Pediatric Surge PLAYBOOK (Master Guide Toolkit) to maximize and leverage pediatric surge operational capability during catastrophic events across local, state, and regional borders. It aligns and supports existing national, and state pediatric surge/emergency operations plans, and hospital plans. Recommendations can be utilized by a future integrated command structure across state jurisdictions to collectively leverage and incorporate pediatric situational awareness and response capabilities.
11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. | Hosted Lunch
12:15 – 12:30 p.m. | Sponsored Session | Maximizing Situational Awareness: An Introduction in Utilizing Building Data to Improve Decision-making During an Earthquake
Brandon Parrott, Manager, Product Development and Marketing, Kinemetrics

The presentation will briefly discuss an approach to capturing data on building impact, non-structural impact, and occupant impact to maximize situational awareness during earthquakes. It will demonstrate how this information can be combined with safety checklists and simple tools to improve emergency response and outcomes.
12:45 – 1:45 p.m. | Concurrent Breakout Sessions (choose one)
Active Shooter Preparation and Training for Hospitals (Livestream)
Angela Warneke, Hospital Administrator, County of San Diego; Michael Pacheco, Detective, San Diego County Sheriff Department
An active shooter event is likely one of the worst events that can happen within a medical facility due to trauma, loss of potential life, and the continued need for patient care. The active shooter training within hospital settings will assist leadership and educators in establishing protocols, training strategies, community assessment of coverage, and developing a recovery response plan.
Desperate Times Call for Different Measures: Building Crisis Standards of Care During COVID-19
Martha Meredith Masters, Clinical Assistant Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has revealed weaknesses in the health care system and how we deliver care. The Emergency Department is often on the frontline when making difficult decisions regarding care when resources become scarce. It is important to address this with education on crisis standards of care as well as scrutiny of existing models. This includes challenging how they are best designed to meet our current needs, where there might be crucial gaps in the assessment of need and delivery of care, and when they must be implemented.
Hospital Evacuation – Lessons from the Caldor Fire
April Boyde, MSSM, CPP, Safety and Security Manager, and Elizabeth Stork, Chief Human Resource Officer, Barton Health
The primary objective of this presentation is to assist other health care facilities with improving their own response and business continuity plans in the event of a wildfire evacuation. Presenters share lessons learned from the full-scale evacuation of Barton Memorial Hospital and Skilled Nursing Facility in response to the Caldor Fire. We will discuss the logistical challenges of evacuating and repopulating a bistate rural health care system, explore staffing and personnel challenges and considerations, and review lessons learned.
Minutes to Hours – The Kaiser Permanente Northern California Evacuation Toolkit
Suzy Fitzgerald, MD, FACEP, FAAEM, Regional EM Training Director & Emergency Physician, Kaiser Permanente Northern California; Shakiara Kitchen, CHEP, CEM, Regional Practice Specialist, Emergency Management, Kaiser Permanante
This session will provide emergency management personnel with an overview of hospital evacuation considerations when there are only minutes to hours to prepare. The life cycle of an evacuation event will be presented including the Pre-Evacuation, Evacuation, and Post-Evacuation stages, with a focus on the preparedness and response actions in each stage. The components of a standardized evacuation toolkit and recommendations for hospitals/health care systems to adapt and implement the toolkit will be reviewed.
1:45 – 2:15 p.m. | Break, Exhibit Show and Best Practices Poster Showcase
2:15 – 3:15 p.m. | General Session — Spill Drill Thrill: Prepare Your Facility for a Chemical Emergency!
Jason Wilken, PHD, MPH, CDC Career Epidemiology Field Officer, and Danny Kwon, MPH, REHS, California Department of Public Health
Chemical emergencies can happen at any time at health care facilities. The impact may not only be to the facility but patients, staff, and the surrounding community. To assist hospitals and all health care partners, ASPR/TRACIE has developed a “Chemical Emergency Considerations for Health Care Facilities” resource to assist in preparing and responding to chemical emergencies.
3:15 – 4:15 | General Session — Emergency Management Chapter Revisions
Angela Murray, Project Director, Healthcare Standards Development, and Jim Kendig, Field Director, Surveyor Management and Support, The Joint Commission
This presentation provides information about the new and revised Emergency Management chapter standards and elements of performance (EPs) and provide recommendations for implementing the new and revised standards/Eps as well as understand the new survey process . It is specifically for Joint Commission Accredited Hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals. At the conclusion of this presentation, participants will be able to:
- Describe new and revised Emergency Management chapter standards for HAP/CAH Accreditation Programs
- Discuss and understand the new Survey Process
- Identify Emergency management available chapter resources
4:15 – 4:30 p.m. | Sponsored Session | Being Predictive and Proactive: Saving Minutes When Seconds Count
Alok Jain, CEO, Quicklert

During an emergency, every minute, every second counts – whether it is a patient falling, a shooter in the building, a pandemic or a weather-related event. Every healthcare organization needs the right tools – the right technology that is designed to work together intelligently. The Quicklert Connected Healthcare Platform delivers enhanced communications and provides real-time situational awareness during these types of events. Quicklert will share how it helps healthcare organizations create Safe-Smart hospitals by providing AI-based solutions that detect guns, patient falls, mask compliance coupled with advanced video monitoring and nurse call system that saves money and saves lives through a reimagined patient-nurse-physician experience throughout the hospital.
4:30 – 6:00 p.m. | Exhibit Show Reception and Best Practices Poster Showcase
Mingle with colleagues, enjoy hors d’oeuvres, and learn about useful products and services that can help you with disaster planning and response
Note: Livestreaming includes all keynote and general sessions plus select breakout sessions.
Wednesday, September 14
7:00 – 7:45 a.m. | Registration, Continental Breakfast, Exhibit Show and Best Practices Poster Showcase
7:30 – 7:45 a.m. | Sponsored Sunrise Session
Mary Connelly, BS, MEP, ORAU

Since 2008, ORAU has been working alongside the Veterans Health Administration’s Office of Emergency Management (VHA OEM) designing, developing, maintaining, and refining the Performance Improvement Management System (PIMS) – an integrated, secure software suite that unifies critical preparedness activities for emergency managers and their leadership. VHA PIMS is a web-based system that provides a consistent and efficient approach to plan, develop, evaluate and improve emergency management activities throughout the VHA and enables multi-level participation and collaboration supporting 170 medical centers and 1,100 outpatient sites. ORAU will share a brief overview of VHA PIMS focused on the Event Builder tool, developed in accordance with HSEEP methodology using National Performance Measures and Accreditation Standards to generate evaluation criteria, after-action reporting, and exercise requirement tracking highlighting features and functionality used in more than 5,000 exercises/incidents.
7:45 – 8:00 a.m. | Opening Comments
9:15 – 9:45 a.m. | Break, Exhibit Show and Best Practices Poster Showcase
9:45 – 10:45 a.m.| General Session — Pros and Cons: Protection Dogs in Hospitals for Security
Mark Bosque, Founder & CEO, K9 X-Factor; Marcus Brown, K9 Security Officer, Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center; Mike Dunning, Principal Consultant, The Healthcare Security Consulting Group, LLC; Michael Vestino, Dr, PH, MHA, EML, FACHE, Vice President of Support Services, Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center; and Enox, K9 Officer
K9s represent an effective way to prevent and reduce hospital violence and increase safety for patients, staff and visitors. This panel discussion explores the pros and cons of using protection dogs in hospitals and/or hospital emergency rooms. Presenters currently work in hospitals using protection dogs or with security companies providing canines for hospital security.
10:45 – 11:00 a.m. | Break
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | Concurrent Breakout Sessions (choose one)
Trial by Fire: Building the Strength to be Flexible
Morgan Jarus, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator, Sutter Lakeside Hospital
Disruption is now the norm, and hospitals must be prepared to respond to multiple types of disasters – sometimes running simultaneous responses or prolonged Incident Command Centers. Learn from an emergency preparedness coordinator whose hospital has opened HICS 17 times in seven years, responding to a wide variety of disasters. During this session, you’ll learn how to engage staff and leaders in a meaningful way to build a living, relevant EM program that has the strength to be flexible, adding resilience to your team to emerge stronger after disasters.
Social Media Roles in Emergency Management
Valerie Lakey, Executive Director, Mayers Memorial Hospital District
The public information officer (PIO) is a vital part of the incident command team, charged with delivering accurate information to the right people at the right time. This session will review the role of the PIO and present attendees with strategies for utilizing social media for emergency communications.
Health Systems’ Partnerships with Public Health for Disaster Response
Tiffany Riviera, Deputy Director, PHEPR, San Francisco Department of Public Health; Mary Mercer, MD, Clinical Health Systems, and Lukejohn Day, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital
The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged health care delivery systems world-wide by straining scarce resources, such as critical care therapeutics, hospital beds and clinical staff, necessitating drastic public health measures. Cross-institutional collaborations within communities offer unique opportunities to prevent or mitigate health disparities in resource utilization and access to care. In this session, San Francisco Department of Public Health will present on their collaboration with health systems that allowed them to do just that.
NDMS Pilot Program: Enhancing Capacity, Capability and Interoperability across the NDMS Definitive Care Network (Livestream)
Clair Pelura, Manager, Deloitte Consulting; Patrick Femia, Business Analyst, Deloitte Consulting; and Gabriela House-Lee, Project Manager, Operations, Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine
The National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) Pilot Program is identifying opportunities to enhance partnerships between military and civilian health care systems to improve military-civilian interoperability and medical surge capabilities and capacity to care for combat casualties repatriated to the United States. This session will provide an overview of the pilot program, activities completed to date, highlight medical surge readiness and opportunities for improvement in the Sacramento region based on stakeholder feedback. Attendees will leave with a better understanding of opportunities and mechanisms to improve medical surge readiness in California.
12:00 – 1:00 p.m. | Plated Lunch, Raffle and Grand Prize Drawing
1:15 – 2:15 p.m. | Concurrent Breakout Sessions (choose one)
How to Manage a Response Using Virtual & Hybrid Command Centers (Livestream)
Kelly Anderson, Enterprise Emergency Management, City of Hope
When health care workforce moved to home offices to minimize the effects on COVID-19 in the workplace, it created changes for the traditional hospital command center. How do you run a virtual/hybrid command center while continuing to experience COVID-19 surges and other code triages? This session addresses incident response and management, including what technology, planning, training and education is needed to make a virtual/hybrid command center successful.
Hospital Guidebook for Access and Functional Needs (AFN) in a Disaster
Kevin Muszynski, Project Manager, Support Services, and Steve Storbakken, Director, Emergency Preparedness & Environment of Care Compliance, Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center; and L. Vance Taylor, Chief, Office of Access and Functional Needs, California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services
The AFN Guidebook is a tool hospital emergency managers can use to broaden their understanding of diverse AFN communities while empowering them to develop hospital policies and procedures, risk assessments, and Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs) capable of meeting the complexities associated with serving the AFN community during disasters.
Incident Response and Maintaining Situational Awareness Across Multiple Facilities/Regions
Kimberly Galey, National EM Consultant, and Shakiara Kitchen, CHEP, CEM, Regional Practice Specialist, Emergency Management, Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente embarked upon a journey to standardize emergency response and research and deploy an incident response tool which will allow the organization to communicate effectively in an accurate and timely manner. Join us in a discussion to review the research, development and implementation process Kaiser has utilized to adopt and standardize a hospital incident response system covering eight regions, 42 hospitals and a national command center. The purpose of the discussion will be to help others identify technology needs, potential questions, issues and strategies.
Leading, Learning and Laying the Course Through COVID-19
Christopher Riccardi, CHSP, CHEP, Manager, Emergency Management & Business Continuity, and Calvin Fakkema, Director of Support Services, Children’s Health of Orange County (CHOC)
This presentation demonstrates how CHOC adapted to the barrage of issues that were faced during COVID-19. The hospital command center (HCC) implemented day care for staff families, outdoor preprocedural drive-through testing, staff guidance and information sharing through “Source of Truth” messaging and two-way situational reporting amongst coalition peers. Documenting all activities through a virtual HCC tool with over 6,000 activity log entries over 36 operational periods has proven to be a best practice that made a daunting task manageable.
2:15 – 2:30 p.m.| Break
2:30 – 3:30 p.m. | General Session — UC Davis Meets TJC Emergency Management Standards While Increasing Program Quality
Kristina Spurgeon, Emergency Manager, and Charles Schafer, Emergency Management Coordinator, UC Davis Health
Learn how UCDH conducted an in-depth inventory of the current EM program and used a focused self-assessment protocol to identify and address gaps that can be easily applied to your hospital’s EM Program. Hear how this collaboration opportunity with stakeholders increased the success of the EM program, and what The Joint Commission surveyors thought of these efforts. Available tools for attendees include an updated Hazard Vulnerability Analysis template and standards cheat sheet spreadsheet.
3:30 p.m. | Closing Remarks
Congratulations to the Best Practices Poster Showcase Winners!
- California Department of Public Health — Radiation Emergency in your Hospital?
- Children’s Hospital Los Angeles — Increasing Knowledge and Perceptions of Disaster Preparedness: A Brief Educational Intervention on Evacuation Procedures at a Free-Standing Children’s Hospital
- El Camino Hospital — Riding the COVID-19 Pandemic Waves with Shared Governance for Staffing and Workforce Safety
- Department of Veterans Affairs — Lesson Learned About Telehealth Preparedness at the Veterans Health Administration During COVID-19
- Kaiser Permanente — Wildfire Smoke and Air Quality
- Mozaik Solutions — Leading and Thriving Through Crisis: A Brain-Based Perspective – A Groundbreaking New Look at Emergency Management Stressors & Their Impacts
- Sierra View Medical Center — Tulare County Surge & Emergency Operations Coalition
- Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children’s Health — From Zoom to the Room: Achieving Symbiosis in Hybrid Emergency Response
- Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center — Wildfire Evacuation Preparedness: A Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Project
Chair
Mary Massey, BSN, MA, CHEP, PHN, Vice President, Emergency Management, California Hospital Association
Committee Members
Tony Barker, MSHS, Area Emergency Manager, U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, Office of Emergency Management
Ryan Burgess, RN, MSN, Hospital Preparedness Coordinator, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
Chad Cossey, Disaster Response Planner/Surge Coordinator, Dignity Health
Stephanie Meeks, Emergency Management & Regulatory Compliance Manager, Ridgecrest Regional Hospital
Susan M. Fitzgerald, MD, Emergency Management Physician Lead, Santa Rosa Medical Center
Nicola Harwood, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator, St. Joseph, Orange
Lois Husted, RN, Emergency Preparedness Officer, Queen of the Valley Medical Center
Monique Imroth, MEP, Director, Emergency Preparedness/Response, UC San Diego Health System
Danisha Jenkins, PhD, RN, Director, Emergency Management, Sharp Healthcare
Connie Lackey, RN, Director, Emergency Preparedness, Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center
Valerie Lakey, Director, Public Relations/PIO/Safety Disaster Co-Coordinator, Mayers Memorial Hospital District
Shannon McDougal, Executive Director, City of Hope
Mark Shirley, MS, CSP, CHMM, Environmental Risk Consultant, Sutter Valley Hospitals
Kristina Spurgeon, Emergency Manager, University of California, Davis Health
Steve Storbakken, Director, Emergency Preparedness & Environmental Safety, Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center
Ryan Tuchmayer, Associate Director, Disaster Preparedness & Response, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
We would like to thank our corporate sponsors for their support of the 2022 Disaster Planning Conference.
Platinum Sponsor:



Gold Sponsors:


Silver Sponsors:






Exhibitors to Date:
- 3M
- Advanced Egress
- ATI Disaster Recovery Services
- BlueSky Restoration Contractors, LLC
- California Poison Control System
- CDPH, Laboratory Response Network for Chemical Threats
- CENTEGIX
- Cyalume Technologies
- DLX, Deployed Logix
- DQE
- Ethos Evacuation Strategies LLC (MedSled)
- Everbridge
- FirstNet Built by AT&T
- FORTS USA
- Guest Communications Corporation (GCC)
- ILC Dover
- Image Sales, Inc.
- Juvare
- Kappler
- Kinemetrics, Inc.
- Luxfer Magtech, Inc.
- ORAU
- Practical Hospital Services
- Prep-ICS
- ProPac, Inc.
- Paws 4 Healing
- Emergency Ready / Quake Kare
- Ready America
- ReddiNet
- RRS Patient Decontamination
- Simpler Life Emergency Provisions
- Veoci
What time zone is the event in? All times listed in the event are Pacific Time. On the sessions tab you can switch time zones to your device time instead of event time.
Event Access
Why did I get logged out? For privacy reasons, your login only stays valid for 24 hours. You will need to request a new verification code if 24 hours has passed or you have logged out.
Can I share links to the Attendee Hub & App? Yes, please feel free to share links, but in order for the recipient to access the event, they must first be registered.
Sessions
Can I create a schedule?
To create your personal agenda, log into the Attendee Hub and view the list of sessions from the ‘All Sessions’ tab. When you see the ones you’d like to attend, click the blue ‘Add Session’ button. View your schedule from the calendar icon. Pro Tip! Watch for helpful links to appear in the right hand corner of your screen just prior to the session start time.
Don’t want to make a schedule in the Hub but still want helpful reminders? Select, ‘Add to Calendar’ from within each session description or within the session detail page in the Attendee Hub to add it to your personal calendar.
Do sessions have a capacity? There is no session capacity for virtual sessions.
Are there CE credit available at this event? Yes! Please visit the ‘CEs’ tab on the conference webpage for complete details.
Recordings & Presentations
I want to watch a session again or watch a session I missed. When will sessions be available on-demand? Please allow one week after the conference concludes for the video to be processed and transcoded for on-demand playback. On-demand sessions will be accessible for up to 30 days following the event.
Will you have downloadable presentations? PDF versions of each presentation are available within the sessions on the Attendee Hub (virtual attendees) and Mobile App (in-person attendees).
Virtual Attendees
How do I ensure the best video experience? Just like any live stream, there are things you can do to ensure the best viewing experience:
- Make sure you have a strong internet connection
- Use Chrome or Firefox as your browser
- It also helps to close non-essential tabs in your browser.
If you do experience buffering or your video freezes, reload the session page before contacting CHA Education.
How do I join a session? Sessions will open 5 minutes prior to their start time. The ‘Join Session’ button will become readily available at that time.
When I leave the session room, I can no longer hear the speaker. Your session experience is designed to be immersive. Just like an in-person session, if you leave the room you can’t hear the speaker! If you navigate to another event page, your session will stop. Simply click back into the session to return to the live stream.
October 3 & 4
Sacramento Convention Center & Hyatt Regency Sacramento
For additional assistance contact CHA’s Education Department at education@calhospital.org.