Business Continuity and Healthcare Disaster Planning

The Business Continuity field has seen an explosive and rapid growth rate following 9/11. In the wake of that tragic day, the significant difference between businesses located within one of the World Trade Centers that would be able to reopen and those forced to shut down was the level of resilience to business processes the business had.
Since 9/11, we’ve seen companies large and small implement not only redundancy of data and continuity plans for all crucial business processes. Sure, healthcare has also implemented redundancy of data and business continuity plans for administrative and business activities, But what about the fundamental nature of healthcare? Shlomo Rechnitz
A business continuity plan is designed to protect the vital business processes that must be maintained to ensure business operations and increase profitability. For an investment firm, these processes comprise data storage, client accounting and real-time financial processing, to name just some. Business contingency planning for healthcare is geared towards supporting functions like client accounting, data storage and real-time financial processing. However, do these processes help the goals of healthcare?
A company that invests is in the business of managing markets and money and business continuity plans. Helps in that goal. Healthcare is the industry of providing medical care. Healthcare business continuity is currently divided between two specialists The business continuity professional and the emergency medical planner/safety official. The skilled in business continuity is accountable for ensuring the administrative and financial procedures of the healthcare company are in place. The safety and medical contingency planning manager is responsible for ensuring the healthcare delivery process continues without interruption. But how do these two approaches support the purpose of healthcare? Shlomo Rechnitz
Business continuity plans for healthcare should safeguard the vital business processes needed to sustain the business’s efficiency and profitability. This includes vital medical services as well as administrative and financial procedures. However, most healthcare institutions within the United States are private sector enterprises. They cannot fulfil their budgets for operational expenses with emergency medical services or even admissions to general hospitals. This was apparent in the latter part of the 1970s, and the early 1980s as the decrease in emergency medical services led hospitals to shut down or reduce services offered in the emergency rooms. Congress passed the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) to slow this down. In 2007, health care institutions helped to pay for the unfunded EMTALA obligation through outpatient services. These are precisely the services that medical contingency planners and safety officers shut down when disaster strikes. Shlomo Rechnitz
As with business contingency planning, healthcare disaster planning starts with a vulnerability analysis. However, in contrast to the vulnerability analysis used in business, which focuses on identifying critical processes in the industry, vulnerability analysis for healthcare is focused on assessing external risks. The healthcare disaster planning process is built on the “All Hazards” method. Despite the apparent focus on external dangers, the “All Hazards” approach is supposed to be a “Process Hazards” approach. Here is the issue for the medical emergency planner/safety officer and the new market opportunities for the professional in business continuity. Shlomo Rechnitz
Healthcare urgently requires a planner who can integrate vulnerability analysis for healthcare and business process risk analysis. The average daily loss in revenue for hospitals that have to shut down outpatient services after a catastrophe is one-quarter of one million dollars. Additionally, there are financial losses due to process errors in charge entry, registration and billing. Healthcare delivery is often hampered because the process fails in a disaster, resulting in a backlog of patients and loss of efficiency. A healthcare disaster plan based on the standard vulnerability analysis, coupled with a vulnerability analysis of processes, would not just focus on the business continuity issues but also identify the weaknesses of medical approaches, which allows resources for medical care to focus on the continuity of medical procedures. Also, an emphasis on business continuity that focuses on the core mission of the healthcare facility to provide healthcare and maintain profits would aid in both the business and medical procedures while speedily returning to regular operation to restore all sources of revenue. Shlomo Rechnitz