Articles
5 Hospital Crisis Scenarios and How to Overcome Them
By Lindsey Dunn
Hospital Review
October 5, 2009
5. Natural disaster
The crisis: One of the most devastating tornados in the country ripped through the South in 1997, severely damaging the offices of numerous physicians affiliated with an Atlanta-based pediatric
hospital. Although the hospital had a strong disaster plan and had enacted numerous drills to protect its main hospital facility and its patients, which were not ultimately affected by
the storm, the healthcare organization overlooked the importance of developing an action plan for dealing with natural disasters affecting its more than 300 affiliated pediatric physicians
with offices in 70 different locations. Approximately 15 percent of the hospital's physician network was unable to occupy their office space to treat patients after the storm, and efforts
to repair the damage were estimated to take from 6-12 months.
The solution: The hospital worked quickly to locate temporary office space for the physician practices affected by the disaster so that they could resume business, according to Marty Rosenberg,
a principal with EthosPartners, a healthcare management consulting firm, and an executive at the children's hospital during the time of the scenario described here. Other practices allowed
the shuttered practices to see patients in their offices, doubling up schedules and opening during weekends in some instances. Another issue facing the networked providers was difficulty
in accessing the then paper-based patient records at these shuttered facilities — an additional concern that the hospital had not considered.
According to Mr. Rosenberg, many of the difficulties the hospital faced could have been alleviated if the hospital would have considered its affiliated physicians in its disaster preparedness
plans. "We were not prepared for a disaster to hit this critical part of our hospital. We had a disaster plan in place for our inpatient facility, as was required by our accrediting
body, but we weren't prepared for the networks, and as a result multiple pediatric practices were completely put out of business for some time," he says.
Mr. Rosenberg also cautions that as healthcare providers become more dependent on electronic health records, there is an increased need to protect that information and an increased need
for a backup plan for accessing the information if systems are damaged. He advises that hospitals view infrastructure as an insurance policy to protect health information. He also suggests
that all electronic systems have off-site back-up storage, because the likelihood of systems going down in two locations is very unlikely.
As healthcare systems moved from hospital-centric providers to more integrated delivery systems, systems should ensure that disaster preparedness, both in terms of securing physical locations
and electronic data, consider both inpatient and outpatient facilities in the network.