CMS Facilities Required to Conduct Vulnerability Assessments & Active Shooter Training

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are subject to new emergency plan and procedure compliance. AEGIS Security & Investigations can help CMS facilities meet these new requirements, such as performing risk assessments and providing emergency training for active shooter situations.

Medical facilities such as hospitals and skilled nursing facilities are required to conduct Hazard Vulnerability Assessments that identify events for which they need to prepare. Furthermore, after conducting such a risk assessment, the facilities are required to implement contingency mechanisms into their emergency plans to ensure the safety of patrons.

Risk management, such as conducting a Hazard Vulnerability Assessment, is directed toward assessing, evaluating and measuring risks, ultimately mitigating risk to an acceptable level. In some cases, the acceptable risk may be near zero. Risks can come from client activity, associates, accidents, natural causes, human error, and intentional acts.

Companies can minimize liability to their operations and risk to the staff and property by conducting a full analysis of their facility. AEGIS offers a broad and detailed evaluation that includes clients policies, procedures, operations, environment and physical infrastructure. AEGIS employs a range of all-hazards techniques and tools to observe, orient, decide, and act creating deployable plans that enable our clients to remain safe and secure.

AEGIS Security & Investigations conducts risk and threat assessments across a broad spectrum of clients. We conduct thorough investigations of all factors relevant to assessing vulnerabilities and potential threats. Analysis of risk considers present security plans, operational procedures, emergency action plans, physical response capability, and first responder expectations. After identifying risks, AEGIS security consultants will recommend specific improvements to mitigate those risks to the extent possible. We will assist through all levels of implementation if required. This process may be applied internally in accordance with best practices or externally for the purposes of creating, submitting, and obtaining conditional use permits. In addition to a thorough assessment, AEGIS facilitates testing of existing security programs.  Upon agreement with the client, we will attempt a clandestine breach of the clients’ security for a real time test of the clients’ response capabilities. This information is invaluable in adjusting plans to be effective and efficient.

For the updates to the medical sector, skilled nursing facilities in particular will be required “to develop and maintain an emergency plan that is based on a risk analysis utilizing an all-hazards approach to identify potential risks and perils that can impact a facility both internally and externally” (see this article). In order to develop such a plan, it is important that facilities conduct a hazard vulnerability assessment to identify risks to the location. This should include disaster management and emergency preparedness.

Additionally, CMS facilities will be required to run training courses and development programs that ensure all staff are educated on handling various emergency situations. Bringing in a team of experts on the subject is critical to ensuring staff are properly trained. Particularly as medical teams move away from medical responses to ensure the safety of their patrons and workplace, it is critical that experts in other fields be brought in to provide accurate training.

As CMS facilities develop stronger emergency plans, it is important for them to consider active preparedness and response shooter training. Active shooter situations have become increasingly common in workplaces. Such incidents happen for a range of reasons. There are trends and pre-incident indicators that typically lead to such an incident that fall within several categories, including terrorism, victims and mental illness.

AEGIS Security & Investigations offers active shooter training programs designed for people at all levels within an organization. These training are the first step in understanding you and your organization’s capabilities and responses to an incident. Taking the steps to become better prepared in hostile situations cannot only save your life but help save the lives of those around you.

The civilian active shooter training provided by AEGIS are intended to build on “run, hide, fight,” the long-standing method of saving yourself in these events. Workshops run from an hour to several hours dependent on the needs of the organization and individuals. Our most highly sought after workplace violence training program is our one-hour plus add-on Run, Hide, Fight Live Fire Demo; participants begin with a lecture and basic training on how to handle the situation and are then exposed to sample scenarios in which they practice those same skills.

AEGIS Security & Investigations is a Los Angeles based security firm that is licensed and insured to provide high-end armed and unarmed regular and temporary off-duty police officers, bodyguards, security officers, loss prevention agents, and hostile termination support. Additionally, we offer private investigation, consultation, skip tracing, and background investigation services. Our security training and active shooter workshops have been featured in news media and are renowned for their effectiveness and transparency. For more information or to contact us, visit www.aegis.com.