Contingency Planning for a Healthcare Provider

In this paper can be found a generic contingency plan for the health care industry, this paper shows how quickly things can change for health care providers, and what steps that need to be taken in case of a down ward spiral for the provider.

This paper explains the seven steps of a contingency plan in detail to achieve maximum effectiveness. In this case, the contingency plan is for a surgical center.

Contingency Planning for the Health Care Provider
Background
In this paper can be found a generic contingency plan for the health care industry, this paper shows how quickly things can change for health care providers, and what steps that need to be taken in case of a down ward spiral for the provider. This paper explains the seven steps of a contingency plan in detail to achieve maximum effectiveness. In this case, the contingency plan is for a surgical center, (The Author, 2014).

Practice Overview

There are many ways contingency planning can be defined.

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Contingency planning are steps, procedures, and policies for management that are created to keep business operations on track running and/or to restore them as well possibly during disaster or system failure. Disaster recovery is a number of processes that only pays attention to the processes of recovery. As defined by the Department of Health and Human Services, a contingency /disaster recovery plan is a strategic measure taken if there is a malfunction in a business product or if there is disaster such as flood, or fire or if things don’t go according to plan, (DHHS, n.

d.).

Contingency is just one part of a large process for emergency preparedness that includes disaster recovery planning, business practices, and operational continuity. What is also often involved in repairing for such events are processes at a level of organizational processes and implementing policies that may require plans that are numerous and properly prepared for, recover from, respond to, and continue events that impacted by continued activities. What must also be considered by project managers are the disruptions and impacts of the plan, concurrently with organizational policies and standards, for such events. As part of a comprehensive risk management approach, a manager should identify threats and potential vulnerabilities for contingency planning and then he should implement approaches to limit potential impact or to prevent such incidents from happening, (DHHS, 2014). Contingency planning involves seven key factors to success.

1. Identify any regulatory requirements that involve contingency planning. Create a formal contingency planning policy statement.

2. Conduct a business impact analysis to recognize business processes and components, and systems that are critical to contingency planning. Mention the priorities to recovery and include impact events.

3. Identify and implement preventative controls and measures to increase availability, decrease the disruption effects, and reduce the cost of contingency.

4. Develop recovery strategies that make sure if something doesn’t go according to plan or if there is disaster, infrastructure critical systems and business can recover fast.

5. Develop contingency plans that include precise procedures and guidance for recovery from disruptions.

6. Plan testing, training, and exercises to practice and test contingency plans so that if there are and unfilled gaps or holes in the plan they could be filled. Also to make sure recovery personnel is prepared just in case of disruptions.

7. Maintain contingency plans. Update and add new factors to them to show the changes in the factors that influence them. The development of contingency planning is essential to implementing and developing an emergency preparedness program that is comprehensive. According to NIST, there are five main components of contingency plan.

Best Practices
1. Concept of operations
1. Notification and activation
2. Recovery of operations
3. Reconstitution of normal operations
4. Supporting information as part as the plans appendices

If success is wanted for contingency planning, it is essential for stakeholders to regularly re-look parts of operational importance. The types of contingency plans that should be included are,

1. Business continuity plan
2. Business recovery plan
3. Continuity of operations plan continuity of support plan
4. Crisis communications plan
5. Cyber incident response plan
6. Disaster recovery plan
7. Occupant emergency plan
Conclusion
In conclusion, contingency plans are created to protect responses to any disruptions or anything that may impact regular operations. The information the plans contain, the types of plans, and the responses all depend on the following factors, risk that a particular type of disruption may occur, resource availability to respond to different types of disruptions, organizational response capabilities, and readiness to deal with any type of disruption(DHHS, n.d.).

References

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES(n.d.)
ENTERPRISE PERFORMANCE LIFE CYCLE FRAMEWORK
Contingency Plan HHS EPLC Practice Guide
Contingency planning. How to plan for disasters. Author Delisio ER
http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.cecybrary.com/eds/detail?vid=2&sid=2bc0c2e0-b744-443...