Tabletop Exercise Facilitation
The plan looks fine
until someone has to use it.
A tabletop exercise is how you find out what your plan is actually missing — before a real event does.
Most organizations complete their emergency plan and consider the work done.
It isn't.
A written plan tells your people what they’re supposed to do. It doesn’t tell you whether they understand it, whether they can execute it under pressure, or whether the gaps you haven’t thought of yet will surface at the worst possible moment.
Tabletop exercises exist for exactly this reason. You put your leadership team in a room, walk them through a realistic scenario, and find out — in a low-stakes environment — where the plan holds and where it doesn’t. No equipment, no disruption to operations, no patients at risk. Just your people working through a problem before the problem is real.
That’s not a drill. It’s a structured conversation with consequences that matter.
It's also required.
CMS requires documented emergency drills and exercises for certified healthcare facilities. The Joint Commission requires organizations to conduct at least two emergency management exercises per year — one of which must be a community-wide or facility-based drill. OSHA 1910.38 requires that employees be trained on emergency procedures.
A facilitated tabletop exercise satisfies the exercise requirement and generates the documentation to prove it.
How it works.
01
Scenario Design
Every tabletop starts with a remote planning session. I learn your facility type, your patient population, your existing plan, and your team’s prior experience with exercises. From that, I build a scenario tailored to the risks your organization is actually likely to face — not a generic template dropped into your conference room.
02
Facilitated Exercise
A half-day on-site session — typically three to four hours — with your leadership team and department heads. I run the scenario, introduce complications as the exercise progresses, and keep the conversation focused on decisions and gaps rather than procedure recitation. The goal is to surface real issues, not perform a rehearsal.
03
After-Action Report
Within a week of the exercise, you receive a written after-action report documenting what worked, where the gaps are, and specific recommended actions. This is the document that drives actual improvement — and the one your surveyor will want to see.
What's included
- A remote planning session to design the scenario around your organization
- A custom scenario built for your facility type and likely risk profile
- A half-day facilitated exercise with your leadership and department heads
- Scenario documentation — scenario narrative, inject sequence, participant materials
- A written after-action report with specific findings and recommended actions
- Exercise documentation suitable for regulatory review
$3,000
Typical investment for a single-location engagement
Engagements range from $2,500–$4,000 depending on scenario complexity, number of participants, and facilitation time required. Organizations that conduct tabletop exercises annually qualify for repeat-engagement pricing. A single conversation is the fastest way to get an accurate number — no obligation, no pitch.
A tabletop exercise is one afternoon.
The gaps it surfaces could take months to close without one.
Most organizations that complete a tabletop exercise either return annually for a scenario refresh or move into staff-level training — getting the findings from the leadership exercise in front of the people who will actually be executing the plan.