Healthcare Facility Downtime: 4 Tips for Business Continuity

9/26/2024 Beth Jackson

From cyberattacks to weather events, virtual and physical threats can disrupt business continuity at a moment’s notice. The increasing frequency of cyberattacks — 88% of healthcare organizations experienced at least one cyberattack in the past year, according to a report by the Ponemon Institute — coupled with natural disasters highlights the urgent need for robust business-continuity plans in the healthcare industry. Today, for many health systems, it’s not a matter of if such an event will occur, but when. 

As many know all too well, cybersecurity issues can shut down a health system’s ability to provide care. A typical downtime event — when hospitals or clinics shut down or their services are largely unavailable — lasted an average of 18.7 days in 2023, according to a report from Comparitech, with a potential continued impact of months later. Furthermore, there’s a hit to the bottom line: During this time, healthcare systems must turn away critical revenue, which can result in a breakdown of consumer trust and produce increased costs. 

For these reasons, a growing number of healthcare organizations are now building and executing risk-mitigation strategies. They’re putting in the work to prepare for — and lessen the effects of — these types of worst-case scenarios.

One such strategy is implementing paper-based tool kits that can be quickly utilized in the event of a facility’s downtime. 

Four tips for downtime preparation

Since October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month — a dedicated month for the public and private sectors to raise the perception of cybersecurity’s importance — it’s the ideal time for healthcare systems to assess their continuity plans in case of a downtime event. 

Consider these four tips when planning and evaluating your business continuity plans:

1. Create a downtime binder: Ensure all critical departments (at minimum your Risk Management office) have a downtime binder filled with one hard copy of every form used in their respective locations. Consider this binder your “downtime tool kit” that contains essential and critical paper forms needed to maintain care continuity, administer care, and deliver important communications. The binder’s contents could range from prescription scripts and administration forms to consent documents and emergency phone numbers. Binders should be reviewed monthly for any additions or deletions. In addition, the binders should be fully reviewed on a yearly basis for accuracy, obsolescence, content updates, and more. 
2. Training and facilitation: Organize a Downtime Team comprising trainers and educators who can help facilitate downtime procedures and who will “activate” the communication plan at the event’s inception. In addition, these individuals will serve as your key trainers — specifically focusing on newer clinicians and physicians who are primarily used to a digital intake model, ensuring their comfort level with analog processes. Facilities should schedule “planned downtime” once every month to ensure all nurses, doctors, and administrators know how to correctly use the forms — and that the downtime team understands activation procedures. 
3. Stored and ready for use: Since the average downtime event can last an average of over 18 days, keeping at least three to four days of “downtime backup” of your high-priority forms is ideal. These should be securely stored at the hospital location for immediate access. Ensure they’re clearly marked and organized for efficient distribution. If space proves challenging at the provider location, maintaining additional inventory at a near-site or outside warehouse location is prudent. Having these toolkits ready is essential: If your system is large, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to produce, kit, and assemble them on the fly. A hybrid approach of onsite storage, near-site warehousing, and portable storage container options is often the best recipe for success. 
4. Considerations beyond forms: While forms are key to maintain working order and are an essential part of the downtime tool kit, don’t neglect these additional important event components: 

• Labels — Consider utilizing consecutively numbered labels for lab continuity plans, allowing personnel to access and retrieve information quickly and reliably. Medical filing labels help track a patient’s clinical records, patient charts, lab tests, staff records, etc., plus identify files by topic and organize them by month and year. During a downtime event, registration departments must still be able to admit patients, offer bedside services, and have barcoded hospital ID wristbands and pharma and lab labels for patient safety.
• Signage — Utilize signage for patients, visitors, and staff to drive awareness during a downtime event. This “event signage” can be temporary and can take the form of retractable or tension-fabric stands, banners, posters, floor/carpet stickers, A-frame signs, and more. In addition, your facility’s permanent wayfinding signage can play a critical role in providing navigation within the hospital’s location. Interior signage can direct patients and visitors to care areas and also serve as evacuation maps, safety/hazard warnings, point to stairwells and emergency exits, and more. Best practices: Regularly inventory your facility’s existing wayfinding signage to ensure it’s not only in good shape but also up to date with regard to departments and their locations.

Prepare now for an eventual event

You can customize the downtime tool kit to your facility’s specific needs, services, and goals. Garner input from the various departments as well as C-suite executives and your Downtime Team for prioritizing, equipping, organizing, and budgeting. 

The more you can do now to prepare across all departments and help maintain order between the patients and the staff, the better you will be able to navigate the event itself. 

 

Beth Jackson is the Regional Vice President of Sales & Growth at RRD. RRD understands the challenges that healthcare providers face in mitigating risk and maintaining business continuity during planned and unplanned downtime events. As such, we consult with providers to leverage our knowledge and production expertise, with purpose-built technology, to help build programs that maintain business continuity during these events. For more information, contact Beth Jackson.