Since 9/11, the business continuity industry has experienced rapid and explosive growth. On that terrible day, the big difference between the reopened business in the World Trade Center and the company that is about to close is the degree of flexibility in the business processes that the company has.
Over the years since 9/11, companies large and small have not only implemented data redundancy, but have implemented continuity plans for all key business processes. To be sure, healthcare has also implemented data redundancy and business process continuity plans for business and management activities, but what about the real business of healthcare?
Business continuity plans are designed to preserve critical business processes that must be retained to maintain operations and profitability. For an investment company, these processes include data storage, customer accounting and real-time financial processing. The Healthcare Business Contingency Plan is designed to support processes such as data storage, customer accounting, and real-time financial processing; but does this support the mission of healthcare?
An investment company is engaged in money and market management; their business continuity plan supports this mission. The healthcare business is providing medical services. Currently, the continuity of the healthcare business is shared by two professionals, business continuity professionals and medical contingency planners/security officers. Business continuity professionals are responsible for ensuring that the financial and management processes of the healthcare business are maintained. The medical emergency planner/security officer is responsible for ensuring uninterrupted delivery of health care. But does this splitting approach support the mission of health care?
The healthcare business continuity plan must retain the key business processes required to maintain operations and profitability. This must include key medical services and key financial and administrative processes. However, most medical institutions in the United States are private companies. These companies are unable to meet their operating budgets through emergency medical services or even general hospitals. This situation occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the loss of emergency medical services led to hospital closures or restrictions on emergency room services. To stop this trend, Congress passed the 1986 Emergency Medical and Active Labor Act [EMTALA]. In 2007, health care institutions subsidized EMTALA without funding through outpatient services. These are the services that most medical contingency planners/security personnel close when a disaster strikes.
As with business contingency planning, healthcare disaster planning begins with vulnerability analysis; however, unlike business vulnerability analysis that focuses on identifying critical business processes, healthcare vulnerability analysis focuses on quantifying external threats. The healthcare disaster plan is based on the "all hazards" approach. Although the appearance emphasizes external threats, the "all hazard" approach implies a "process hazard" approach. This is a challenge for medical contingency planners/security officers and new market opportunities for business continuity professionals.
Healthcare is pleased with a planning professional who can combine healthcare vulnerability analysis with business process vulnerability analysis. The average daily income loss of hospitals that were shut down after a disaster was $250,000. In addition, financial losses are caused by the failure of registration, fee entry and billing processes. The provision of health care services often becomes a patient because of the process failure and reduced efficiency of patients during the disaster. Medical disaster planning based on standard healthcare vulnerability analysis and process vulnerability analysis not only addresses business process continuity issues, but also highlights medical process vulnerabilities, thereby concentrating limited medical resources on the continuity of medical processes. Finally, focusing on business continuity, focusing on the primary tasks of healthcare providers providing healthcare and maintaining profitability, will support business processes and healthcare processes while quickly returning to normal operations to restore all revenue streams.
Orignal From: Business continuity and healthcare disaster planning
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