Personnel at Saratoga Hospital are preparing for the unthinkable this week.

“We’ve had more violence and incidents of unrest in Saratoga in the past year than we’ve had in a really long time,” said CEO Jill Johnson VanKuren. “And that’s something we pay attention to.”

In one particular exercise, participants learned how to respond to an armed aggressor, or active shooter situation.

“We’ve been training for this particular scenario for over a year,” Johnson VanKuren said. “Putting together a work plan, coming up with all the different scenarios, doing this in a clinical setting, a business setting, various locations throughout the system.”

Thursday’s exercise took place inside an office that handles patient billing.

“It’s important to train so that you have that muscle memory in the event something like this happens, you know what to do,” Johnson VanKuren said.

Proactive security measures are not unique to Saratoga.

“The challenges that we’re seeing and violence in our emergency rooms has to stop,” Oswego Health CEO Michael Backus said.

A number of hospitals and health care systems across Central New York are rolling out an initiative called Respect and Heal.

“We need family members, patients and everybody that comes in to understand the challenges that we’re confronted with,” Backus said. “And that we’re working through your issue, we see you and know you’re there.”

In a business where there is an obligation to treat and protect patients, these sorts of precautions sometimes go against one’s instinct, highlighting the importance of training.

“We teach and train that we have to take care of yourself first,” Johnson VanKuren said. ”That’s different for people who give their lives on a daily basis in the service of others.”