The practice of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) in healthcare has transformed the way patient information is collected, stored, and managed. EMRs are digital versions of paper charts, containing a patient's medical history, diagnoses, medications, treatment plans, immunization dates, allergies, lab results, and other pertinent clinical information. The healthcare industry has widely adopted EMRs due to their numerous advantages in improving patient care, operational efficiency, and overall healthcare delivery. Efficient Information Management: EMRs streamline the storage and retrieval of patient information. They eliminate the need for physical storage space required by paper records, making patient data easily accessible to authorized healthcare providers. EMRs allow for quick retrieval of patient information during consultations, reducing administrative time spent searching for records and enabling more efficient care delivery. Enhanced Coordination of Care: EMRs facilita...
" Business Continuity Management is about proactively improving the organization's resilience to contingencies , providing mechanisms to restore key products and services within a limited time frame, and protecting corporate reputation."
Introduction to the business continuity standard
BS 25999 / ISO 22301 offer practices and solutions for
Business Continuity Management , managing to reduce the impacts of an
unexpected interruption that affects the organization and helping to detect
possible contingencies that could stop the activity of the company. Provides
companies with a framework for the development and implementation of a Business
Continuity Management System ( BCMS ) in organizations that can be adapted to
particular circumstances and regardless of the size, scope or complexity of the
products or services. they lend.
Those organizations that wish to introduce a BCMS in their
organization must start from elements that, to a greater or lesser extent,
already exist, such as contingency plans in IT departments, disaster recovery
plans, risk management and / or replacement planning. of the staff.The implementation of an SGCN makes it possible to reduce
and eliminate known errors, among which are:
• Inconsistencies
between business requirements and recovery plans.
• Insufficient
space needs for users.
• Inappropriate
and / or undefined priorities.
• "Forgetting"
of fundamental business functions.
• Confusing
interdependencies.
• Underestimating
the importance of tools (email, cell phones, web hosting, etc.)
• Insufficient
recovery capacity and / or resources.
• Plans
insufficiently verified or maintained.
• Lack of
documentation.
• Lack of
training.
• Obsolete
documentation for system management / configurations / contact numbers /
recovery actions.
• Ignore
the possibility of regional emergencies.
• Scenarios
of total loss of capacity for business operations.
• Unavailability
of the usual / alternative spaces.
• Inadequate
protection of vital records.
• High
dependence on key personnel.
• Loss,
displacement, unavailability.
• Transportation
difficulties that prevent the mobilization of personnel involved in recovery.
• Low
performance of staff due to the stress situation.
• Inaccurate
communication of processes.
• Response
plans deficiencies.
• Alternative
media not known / unclear.
• Coordination
incidents between critical parties (employees, vendors, services, emergency
resource managers)
The Management Business Continuity is a collaborative
process in which personnel involved is key to ensuring business continuity in
the management of organization not only in everyday life but also in the most
adverse situations .
A well-managed crisis or disaster situation not only makes
it possible to overcome adverse situations while ensuring the least possible
impact, but it can also improve the image of the organization and even open up
new business opportunities.
What is a disaster?
The answer to this question seems obvious to anyone who has
ever read news about fires, tornadoes, or floods. Surely, when faced with
events of this kind, one can easily qualify them as disasters.
The first criterion to define a disaster is to be able to
classify it as an unplanned interruption .
Furthermore, in most of these cases, the duration of the
disruption caused is unknown .
For example, how long can a power outage last? For many
organizations, a twenty-hour power outage can cause you great losses; however,
in other cases, the organization can endure three or four days without power
without causing a severe impact on the business.
Although the unplanned nature of a disaster is universal,
the timeframe that turns an outage into a disaster varies by organization. Even
in the same company, this period may vary depending on the moment in which the
incident occurs. For example, if it occurs on very specific days for business
functions, key moments of the month, etc., the impact will be much greater than
if it occurred at another time.
The second criterion for defining a disaster is to consider
how long the interruption lasts over time. Continuing with our example, the
lack of electricity supply, if it is prolonged in time, will have a negative
impact on the management of the business if provisional measures are not taken
to restore the affected functions.
In addition, the events listed in the initial list have one
characteristic in common: the organizations that do not develop preventive
actions related to these events have not yet planned the possibility of these
events that could lead the company to a disaster.
The third criterion indicates that a disaster implies an
interruption not covered by the “normal” procedures designed by the
organization to solve daily problems, either because of its duration, or
because of the amount of services that were affected.
In short, the criteria that allow us to define a situation
as a disaster are:
• An
unplanned outage.
• A
prolonged interruption.
• An outage
that cannot be handled or corrected through “normal” procedures thought by
management to resolve problems.