So…. if I say Disaster Recovery to you, what do you do? Do you immediately think about business continuity plans and downtime procedures, or do you do this:
If this Dilbert presentation feels a little to familiar, then you need to think about some strategies.
First, if you think that your hospital or clinic doesn’t need disaster recovery plans you are kidding yourself. Tornadoes, hurricanes, earth quakes, wild fires, power instabilities, and faulty computer hardware and software exist everywhere. Every medical institution in the USA, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and many other places are using some electronic systems. In the near future, we will all be moving to fully electronic health record systems (if you aren’t there already). Whether you are practicing medicine in Rochester Minnesota, Dunnedin New Zealand, or London England, you know that the patient’s needs must come first. Putting the patient’s needs first is just a bit more difficult in the electronic world. Let’s face it, computers break. Paper is much more stable in the short term, even if it does have massive disadvantages to the electronic system in almost every other way.
If your clinical systems crash you can be totally cut off from the patient’s records. Patient histories, prescriptions, allergies, and everything else can become inaccessible. To start the creation of a disaster recovery plan, think of these key items first.
- Create a scope for your project. Do you need a full disaster plan? What systems are critical to plan for?
- Set recovery timetables and goals. What percentage of availability do you need and how soon?
- Document the plans. If it is not documented, then it doesn’t exist.
- Communicate the plans. If people don’t know about it, then it doesn’t exist.
- Test the plans. If the plan hasn’t been tested, then your work hasn’t been proven.
I will break down each of these items over the next few days.
