This is a Test: POD Edition 2024

This is a TEST: POD Edition is a cooperative training and exercise simulation developed to help public-health and emergency-response personnel practice the roles and responsibilities involved in operating a point of dispensing, or POD, during a public-health emergency. Players work together to set up and manage a site that triages, registers, and provides medication or vaccinations to members of the public. The game bridges the gap between discussion-based exercises and full operational drills by using narrative events, limited resources, and collaborative decision-making to encourage teamwork and discussion.

Each player assumes a POD role—such as Logistics, Intake and Education, Safety Officer, Health Communicator, Personnel Coordinator, Security and Law Enforcement, or Medical and Dispensing—with a different set of abilities and responsibilities. The game is played over five rounds representing the hours of a work shift. During each round, new people arrive at the POD, players move them through the site’s processing stations according to available capacity, collect funds and resources, respond to narrative “inject” cards, and purchase role-specific actions. The Incident Commander guides group decisions and rotates among the players between rounds.

The team must balance efficient processing with three escalating status tracks: Hazard, Public Anxiety, and individual Staff Fatigue. High status levels cause additional people or problems to enter play, while reaching the “Game Over” space on any track ends the game immediately. The players win collectively by processing every person through the POD before the end of the fifth round without triggering Game Over. They lose if anyone remains unprocessed at the end of the shift or if any Hazard, Anxiety, or Fatigue marker reaches Game Over.