Event highlights
As global health security risks evolve, hospitals must be ready to manage incidents that place extraordinary demands on services and staff, especially chemical, radiological and nuclear events, where contamination control and rapid triage can determine outcomes. To prepare for such incidents, the WHO Country Office in Czechia and WHO/Europe, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health of Czechia, convened a 3-day workshop to strengthen hospital resilience to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats. Funded by the European Union through the EU4Health CBRN Action, the workshop formed part of a wider effort to boost public health preparedness in Ukraine, neighbouring countries and beyond.
Markéta Galiová, Head of the Crisis Management and Security Unit at the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic, explained: “During this exercise, we focused heavily on the possibility of a dirty bomb, a radiological emergency and other scenarios. I believe that participants will come away with plenty of valuable lessons or perhaps even entirely new knowledge and that the experience will prompt reflection on what they can improve in their own hospitals.”
Drawing on expert peer exchange
The workshop supports a 3-year joint CBRN Action that aims to adapt WHO’s key hospital preparedness tools for CBRN contexts and apply them in ways that help countries across the European Region to strengthen emergency readiness. Its methodology builds directly on an earlier series of peer exchanges coordinated by the WHO Regional Office for Europe, where countries and technical institutions shared what works, what may fail under pressure and what adaptations are needed when conventional mass casualty planning meets CBRN realities. Insights from those exchanges, combined with desk review and national consultations, helped to shape a programme tailored to Czechia’s health system while remaining aligned with international standards for patient safety, service continuity and surge capacity.
Putting learning into practice with the EMERGO Train System
After sessions explaining the strategic foundations of CBRN preparedness, and a technical deep-dive, participants put their knowledge into practice using the EMERGO Train System (ETS). Developed at Linköping University in Sweden and used in more than 40 countries, the ETS is a simulation-based methodology recognized globally for testing disaster preparedness and training staff to manage mass casualty events. Rather than relying on a full-scale field exercise, the ETS uses visual logic to model the patient journey through the health-care chain. Participants work with magnetic symbols on a whiteboard or digital interface, tracking patient flow from arrival and triage through decontamination, treatment, diagnostics, admission and onward referral. Each patient has a magnetic medical record describing injuries and changing vital signs, requiring teams to assess, prioritize and act in real time.
Workshop participant Jiří Fiala from the University Hospital Brno emphasized: “In today’s challenging times, it is extremely important to share practical experience and skills that each of us has, because in emergency situations each of us performs to the best of their ability.”
For CBRN scenarios, the ETS is particularly valuable because it renders contamination and constrained capacity visible. The simulation forces teams to establish and manage “hot”, “warm” and “cold” zones, and to apply decontamination logic before patients can safely enter clinical spaces. It also allows exercise controllers to lock resources – such as staff time, personal protective equipment, antidotes, decontamination lines or imaging capacity – to replicate bottlenecks and tough trade-offs under time pressure. In this safe learning environment, participants can identify gaps that might otherwise remain hidden: unclear handovers between teams, insufficient triage discipline, missing protocols for contaminated arrivals or supply assumptions that fail under surge conditions.
Laura Lloyd-Braff, Preparedness Officer at the WHO Regional Office for Europe, reflected: “What started as peer exchange across the WHO European Region is now being translated into action. By bringing countries together for hands-on training and simulation, we are building a stronger, more connected community of practice ready to respond to CBRN emergencies in the European Region.”
Zsofia Pusztai, WHO Representative in Czechia, said: “Together, this strategic discussion and simulation exercise are strengthening real-world capacities for a resilient health system in Czechia.”
Event notice
The WHO Country Office in Czechia and WHO/Europe, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health of Czechia, will hold a 3-day workshop dedicated to enhancing hospital resilience against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats. This event is funded by the European Union through the EU4Health CBRN Action aimed at enhancing public health capacities in Ukraine, neighbouring countries and beyond.
As the Region faces evolving global health security challenges, the ability of hospital systems to manage CBRN emergencies – particularly chemical, radiological and nuclear incidents – is critical. This workshop is an essential component of a 3-year joint CBRN Action with the objective of adapting WHO’s key hospital preparedness tools to CBRN contexts and using them to support countries in the European Region to enhance their emergency preparedness. The workshop content, based on existing gold-standard tools and previous phases of desk review and peer exchange, is developed to address specific national health system needs in Czechia, while ensuring that hospital protocols for patient safety and service continuity align with international best practices and surge capacity requirements.
The workshop is designed to progress from strategic theory to technical and practical application, culminating in a hands-on simulation:
- Day 1: Strategic foundations – establishing a comprehensive approach to CBRN preparedness at the institutional level;
- Day 2: Technical deep dive – focused sessions on managing specific chemical, radiological and nuclear hazards; and
- Day 3: Simulation exercise – a functional assessment using the Emergo Train System, in which participants will respond to a CBRN scenario, practising triage, decontamination and resource allocation in real time.
The event targets a multidisciplinary cohort of approximately 50 participants, including hospital administrators, emergency managers and frontline medical and nursing staff, as well as distinguished technical experts from the Czech Ministry of Health, the State Office for Nuclear Safety and the National Radiation Protection Institute, guest speakers sharing experiences from other countries, including Ukraine and the United Kingdom, and WHO, as well as certified international Emergo trainers.
A key objective of the workshop is to enable hospitals to continue delivering services and deal with caseloads in the event of CBRN emergencies.
This initiative reinforces the integration of national standards with international emergency frameworks, ensuring that the Czech health-care system remains robust in the face of complex hazards.