Essential steps to stay up and running in a disaster

Mother Nature seems to have a nasty temper. Almost daily, we turn on the national news and witness tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, severe storms and other disasters wreaking havoc on homes, businesses and communities. (Just this week, the East Coast was rattled by a 5.8-magnitude earthquake and is now keeping a close eye on a potential Category 3 Hurricane Irene.) And while it’s disheartening to watch, the harsh reality is this: Disaster -- whether natural or manmade -- can strike any time, and almost anywhere.

For employers dealing with these types of threats, the difference between lengthy down time and a quick recovery lies with proper planning. To ensure you’re never caught off guard in a crisis, you need an emergency preparedness and response plan that includes:

• Emergency contact list. Keep an updated list of employee phone numbers (cell phones and landlines) and 24-hour emergency contact numbers in a secure, easily accessible location. Distribute the emergency contact list, in advance, to all employees via email or as a printed document.

• Employee communication procedures. How will management deliver information and instructions to employees after a catastrophic event? It’s a good idea to pre-record emergency messages on toll-free hotlines. And don’t forget email - accessible via laptops and smartphones -- as a way to connect with employees and customers post-disaster. (Subscribe to a resilient, high-speed Internet service, such as satellite broadband, to maintain communications should your terrestrial network fail.)

• A list of critical tasks. Identify critical business operations (what keeps your company producing, selling, taking orders or providing services) and discuss those functions with affected supervisors and employees. At the same time, consider limited or restricted work schedules, telecommuting arrangements and company transportation services for employees.

• An alternate meeting place. Designate an offsite location for top management and essential staff to gather in case your building is damaged or inaccessible due to roadblocks. Depending on the size of your business and your resources, this location can serve as an emergency command center and help minimize down time in a disaster.

• Customer communication strategy. Obviously, you need to keep in touch with customers, buyers and distributors. Again, a resilient, high-speed Internet service can be vital for delivering business updates and maintaining customer relations when other communications are crippled. During quieter times, you might want to draft a few sample emails explaining what customers can expect and apologizing for any inconvenience. Having this correspondence ready to go at a moment’s notice can be a huge help.

• Data recovery plans. Weather disasters can easily wipe out hard drives and destroy databases. Keep essential backup data at an offsite location safe from flooding and know how to retrieve that information if disaster strikes.

• Employee health and safety measures. Keeping your staff out of harm’s way is a top priority in any disaster. Review your emergency evacuation and response procedures, stock up on the appropriate first aid supplies and, if you experienced damage and are resuming “normal” operations, assess the safety of all work areas before allowing employees to return.

Essential steps to stay up and running in a disaster

How to recover faster from a disaster

Halloween is upon us, which means we're surrounded by all sorts of horrors: ghosts, goblins, bad Lady Gaga costumes and bottomless bowls of diet-wrecking candy.

But if the latest news stories are any indication, wicked weather is one of our bigger threats these days. We turn on the national news and witness vivid coverage of tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, severe storms, fires and other disasters wreaking havoc on homes, businesses and communities. And as we watch the destruction, we think, “Thank goodness it’s not me, my family or my workplace.”

As a responsible employer, however, you need to realize this simple truth: Disaster can strike any time. And the difference between lengthy down time and a quick recovery lies with proper emergency planning.

To ensure you’re never caught off guard in a crisis and can respond promptly, a basic plan should include:

• Emergency contact numbers. Keep a current database of employee and emergency service phone numbers in a safe place with easy access. Cell phones, with their separate networks, are good communication devices in emergencies.

• Detailed employee communication plans. How will top management deliver information to employees after a catastrophic event? It’s a smart idea to prerecord information on toll-free hotlines. And don’t forget the Internet as a way to connect with employees after a disaster.

• A list of critical tasks. Identify and distribute critical business operations (what keeps your company producing, selling, taking orders or providing services) to supervisors and employees. Also, think about limited or restricted work schedules, telecommuting arrangements and company transportation services for employees.

• An off-site meeting place. Designate an off-site location for top management and “essential” staff to meet in case your building is inaccessible.

• Customer communication plans. How will you communicate with customers on the status of their orders and deliver information to business clients?

• Data recovery plans. Natural and man-made disasters can easily wipe out hard drives and destroy databases. Keep critical back-up data at an outside location and have a plan on how to retrieve that information if disaster strikes.

• Employee health and safety. Health and safety become top priorities if you decide to keep your business open during and/or after a disaster. Refine your emergency response procedures and stock up on the appropriate first aid supplies.

Put your plan to the test ...

Once your disaster plan is in place, practice it and then practice it again. Train employees and supervisors on emergency procedures and what to do if they have limited or no access to the building.

Test your plan with emergency dry-runs and document the results. Look for ways to improve and update your plan wherever necessary. Schedule semi-annual meetings of emergency response teams to keep everyone in the loop and up to date.

The amount of lost time and productivity after a major disaster will ultimately come down to your preparations and training. With effective communication and employee cooperation, your business can keep recovery time to a minimum and your business standing after a crisis.

How to recover faster from a disaster

Don’t let patient records float away

The past several years have taught us that no building is safe from the wrath of Mother Nature ... not even a hospital. When your facility is threatened by a hurricane, flood, blizzard or tornado, the safety of your patients and staff is the number one priority.

Once arrangements are made for protecting the people, you need to protect the medical records. And while all businesses need to develop a plan to back up and safely store records, electronic files, and papers, the disaster preparedness needs for a medical facility are even more critical.

Critical and irreplaceable data – The paper and images stored in medical files and electronically are a matter of life and death to patients. When medical records are key to a diagnosis or treatment plan, missing records can dramatically affect the prognosis.

Confidentiality – Medical records are far more personal and private than any other type of business records. If these files abandoned, scattered or otherwise unprotected, patient privacy is unprotected as well.

Non-centralized storage and use – Medical records in a hospital do not stay in one place. At any given time, the records of a single patient could be in the lab, the floor nurses’ station, the surgical suite, and a dozen other places.


Preparing in advance to protect your patients

Start with the location

In many hospitals, the medical records are stored at the lowest level in the building. This puts them at the highest risk of destruction, whether from flood or building collapse. If possible, select a new location that is:

• Above flood level
• More likely to be accessible following building collapse. Basement locations are often completely inaccessible once filled with the material from the former building.
• Fireproof
• In an area with two or more access points. Single door rooms can quickly become blocked and inaccessible because of debris

Develop and practice a disaster preparedness drill and recovery process

Long before the first hurricane watch or blizzard alert is issued, your facility needs to have a thorough and tested disaster preparedness plan and disaster recovery plan.

• Designate a representative from each department or area of the hospital. Have them designate a backup in the same area.


• Have a meeting with the representatives to determine their data and file responsibilities.


• Develop a 72, 48 and 24 hour plan for each area in the hospital. Detail the steps personnel would take to gather and secure medical records. Be clear on who does what ... great procedures are of no use if everyone thinks someone else will do it!


• Test your procedures under a variety of possible situations ... full notice, as with a hurricane, short notice, and emergency evacuation. Make adjustments as needed.


• Develop a post disaster recovery plan for data bases, electronically stored records and paper records. Test this also under a variety of scenarios.


• Make sure the plan is:
  


• Understood
• Accessible
• Updated, as needed

Backup records electronically

Paper charts, lab reports, daily notes, and other hardcopy materials can be scanned directly into a centralized data base. Most radiological results are already in electronic format. Store the records onsite, and in a remote location far from your facility’s geographic location. Be sure your data base is secure ... HIPAA laws require you to protect confidentiality of records in all formats, even in a crisis.

Encourage virtual file checkout

Encourage the hospital staff to check out patient files virtually on a secure intranet. This allows the main paper files to remain in your secure area while doctors, therapists and other professionals use the files throughout the hospital. Not only does it protect your files from loss, it means that updates are instantaneous and accessible to all members of the medical team. Again, make sure HIPAA rules are followed in protecting patient information.

Disaster preparedness is not optional

Disaster preparedness and disaster recovery plans are critical to your hospital, and to the patients you serve. Make sure your facility is ready for anything.

Don’t let patient records float away