¶ … Operations
Outline the major risks associated with maintaining continuity of operations in the event of an environmental catastrophe.
The Chief Operating Officer
Berwick Hospital System
Risks Linked to Environmental Disaster
The Berwick Hospital System identified some susceptibilities common to hospitals in Louisiana that experienced the Rita and Katrina calamities. For minimizing the harm, we may suffer in case an environmental disaster strikes, I have encapsulated within this memo a few potential risks linked to environmental calamities, and an operations continuity plan for coping with such a situation.
The Berwick Hospital System represents a healthcare facility/hospital situated in Illinois State's downtown Chicago area. The main division of the organization comprises of medical labs, 5 operation theatres, and 673 hospital beds. The campus also holds seven smaller satellite structures, which include the nursing home, outpatient doctors' offices for outpatient access/visits and hospice.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) defines an emergency as any unplanned occurrence that may lead to major injuries or deaths of customers, employees, or the general public; or, is capable of shutting down the organization, damaging the organizational environment or physical assets, disrupting operations, or threatening its public image or financial standing. Prior to preparing an operations continuity plan, we are expected examine the possibilities and kinds of environmental disasters that are likely to occur in Chicago city. While the mayor has recently warned us that the nearby elevated train station was discovered to be targeted by a thwarted plot of foreign terrorists to set off large explosives, the far more likely occurrences in Chicago are environmental disasters.
The list of potential natural hazards/vulnerabilities in Illinois State includes severe storm, harsh winter storm, flood, tornado, earthquake, drought, and extreme heat. This list does not cover calamities like terror attacks and crime. When formulating an operations continuity plan for the hospital system, both external and internal resources have to be taken into account for possible vulnerabilities. IEMA (Illinois Emergency Management Agency) has carried out a research for likely emergencies in the State and rated them based on levels of caution (IEMA, 2016).
Illinois Hazard Rating [3]
-- Severe Storms -- Floods -- Severe Winter -- Drought -- Extreme Heat -- Earth Quake -- Tornado -- Terrorist Attack -- -- -- -- Storms -- -- -- -- -- --
Severe -- High -- Severe -- Guarded -- High -- Guarded -- High -- Elevated -- -- Key -- Low
0-12 -- Guarded
13-24 -- Elevated
25-36 -- High
37-48 -- Severe
49-60 -- --
I recommend giving exclusive attention to every potential hazard that is rated above the elevated range, in our operations continuity plan's first tier, with detailed steps and increased cautions. Then, we ought to include the other potential threats, rated between "Low" and "Guarded" levels, for which moderate precautions will be required.
From the capacity of the hospital, we must expect the hospital system to host population groups such as infirm, aged, limited mobility, and special needs populations, within the hospice and nursing home. These patients might be vulnerable to greater risks in the impending introduction or presence of environmental threat. Based on the catastrophic event encountered, we might also face disease agents that can compound through extensive transmission (e.g., contamination of water supply due to floods). In times of emergency, increased traffic in emergency and outpatient departments is highly likely.
Outline of the Basics of a Continuity Plan to Cope with Such a Scenario
Business continuity represents a practice of sustaining critical systems operations. It aims at optimizing operations and reducing or preventing outage time (Gregg, 2009). The formal definition of the term 'business continuity' is:
"The Management of Business Continuity represents a holistic process of management that detects potential impacts threatening an organization, assures effective response, offers a framework to build resilience, and safeguards key stakeholder interests, its value, reputation, and brand."
Analysis
Several analyses are performed for determining essential functions, threat/risks, and RTO (Recovery Time Aims/Objectives).
Business Impact Analysis or BIA
These analyses help identify and prioritize essential functions, which denote collections of logically-linked tasks or activities that, when carried out in concert, give rise to a definite group of outcomes. Business processes are regarded as critical if they create or possess value for stakeholders of the department. This process's impairment interrupts operations and fails to satisfy customer requirements, mandatory requirements, or regulations, and hinders execution of company mission. For instance, triage is regarded as a key emergency department function. Individual hospital departments ought to carry out an assessment of their existing operations and determine essential functions required for maintaining operations and delivering patient care. Subsequently, essential functions must be prioritized, in order to ensure restoration of essential services and effective resource allocation. RTOs are assigned for every essential function. RTO implies the maximum downtime allowed for any critical process prior to the severity of an impact growing to the extent that patient safety is drastically impaired and/or business services cease to function.
Threat and Risk Analysis
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